Monday, January 28, 2013

....and the sky is white

I'm reading a great book titled Shelter me by Juliette Fay. About a young widow with 2 young children, a boy 5 and a girl not yet 1 year old. They are a family going thru a very rough patch in their lives. Trying to cope with a devastating amount of grief and also with new roles and responsibilities. At one point in this story, they are sleeping through the day due to their depression. All three of them in the same bed. It's late afternoon when the little boy gets up to look out the window. He crawls back into bed with his mom and he tells her "the sky is white". And right then I think to myself...when has the sky EVER been white? The line made me look up at the sky through my window and guess what ...the sky right then was white.  How could I have never in my entire life noticed that the sky can sometimes be white??? I know what a cloudy sky looks like, I know what an overcast sky looks like. I've seen gray skies, blue, black, green, pink, orange, peach, lavender, purple and even sunny skies. But never have I ever seen or noticed that the sky could indeed be white. Oh sure, the sky is white when it is snowing, but I always attributed that fact to the reflective power of the snow particles. And when the snow is thick and deep on the ground and still falling from the sky there is a whiteness outside that can make midnight look like the bright light of day. But I never would've called the color of the sky white. This surprised me and made me wonder what else have I been missing in life. What else have I not noticed with my eyes that do not see? What else am I being consumed with that would make me never think about or even notice a white sky? Why do I not look up? Maybe the better question here would be to ask myself why am I looking down? And what exactly am I looking at when I am looking down? Are my looking down eyes also failing to see or notice something?
I can also identify with the moms debilitating depression. I too have gone though my own rough patch....wanting to do nothing more than to sleep all day. Mine wasn't because my husband died. Mine was from a 6 month span of time where so many bad things happened that I am surprised I survived it. In hindsight, I believe that the good Lord was trying to show himself to me. I believe that He was trying desperately to get my attention. But I never looked up then either. To Him or at the sky. It was an awful and heartbreaking time in my life. I lost my job, my self esteem, my dog, my sister, my sanity. It's weird to wrap that up in a single sentence like that. All tidy and neat. One sentence that felt like a life sentence and sent me into oblivion. Thank you Jesus for rescuing me. Thank you for giving me ears to hear you with, since my eyes seem to be capable of missing certain things. Forgive me for not seeing or noticing every thing in this bright and beautiful world that you are trying to show me. Even white skies.

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