Lord, I Want to See

“As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” He called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” “Lord, I want to see,” he replied. Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.” Luke 18:35-42 (NIV)

November 3^rd, 2012. It was the very beginning of the worst winter of my life. I remember, knees on the rough and worn cream color carpet, trying to make sense of it. Everything was fine, and then it wasn’t. That glass was more than half full before it shattered, and for the life of me, I couldn’t come to terms with it. The how’s and why’s just didn’t line up. I begged and pleaded for sight into the nightmare. “Just tell me why. I will abide. I need to know why and how to live beyond this.” I eventually accepted my blindness.

Blindness became sight as I came to a place where I learned to praise in the storm, to know that I didn’t need answers beyond knowing that God was good. “Yes, I will give thanks ahead of this time of horror, because He has always been good. This will be good in time.” Many a night, repeated until sleep, to quell the terror, “Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I put my trust in You. Show me that way that I should go, for to You I entrust my life.” (see Psalm 143:8)

Many a friend’s reassurance of His mercy, which is new every-single-morning. The healing came in spurts, but like any human being, regression would come, and with that, the bargaining, the willing of the eyes; the circumstance “my” way.

“But mine are higher, child.” “Yes, thank You for being greater than I.” (see Isaiah 55:8-9)

Years later, and that heart of thanks would come and go. More often the act of thanks, growing misunderstood. I yearn for the big moments as a matter of regularity. I grow complacent in the mundane. “No small matters, thanks- let’s hit the lottery and thank God for that!” Big, scary prayers answered, that’s where the grateful, “Hands to sky” heart resides.

In speaking with a fellow, more seasoned, photographer the other day I shared with her, as a completely separate matter, (not-so-much, unbeknownst to me) that I felt starved of creativity. I want the constant “wow” shot. To catch and create the moment which a family will hang on their wall and forever remember. “It’s in the heart of thanksgiving.” Not really the answer that I was expecting. I wanted something more technical. My concern wasn’t spiritual, it was technical. She continued, “You were spot on the other night, see the blessing in the landscape, and create.” The words were lost in me, searching for my doubtful reply. But I didn’t sit with the words; allow them to permeate. It wasn’t until the next day, reading “1000 Gifts” by Ann Voskamp, while muscled into a place of stillness, literal waiting, (I was in a waiting room for six hours) that I was stricken with my dear friend’s point, where I would be affected by it most…

“The camera. I slip the camera out of the pocket of my apron. How can this sensor, point-and-shoot in the palm of my hand, capture what the eye sees, the soul memorized? I kneel low on wheat stalks and the edge and I frame up the moon. I want to see beauty. In the ugly, in the sink, in the suffering, in the daily, in all of the moments before I die, in the moments before I sleep. Isn’t beauty what we yearn to burn with before we die? What else so ignites, hot flame? Beauty is all that is glory and God is Beauty embodied, glory manifested. This is what I crave: I hunger for Beauty. Is that why I must keep up the hunt? When I cease the beauty hunt, is that why I begin to starve waste away?”

It is in those words that I find the responses to my spiritual kneading of sorts. The seemingly endless lesson of true thanks.

Thanksgiving is a consistent awareness of the greatness and beauty of our God. It is strengthened by the practiced opening of the minds-eye. In photography, so much of what produces a beautiful image, is the presence of light. Light in the eyes of the subject, light in the sky, behind the fiery leaves of a back-lit tree. Light not just in the sense of sight, but light in the touch of a mother’s nose to the scalp of her newborn; taking in every bit of sweetness, its newness inexhaustible. There is also beauty in the shadow, though. An engaged couple’s front-lit silhouette; stealing a kiss, the shadow which falls across a Daddy’s eyes; squinted shut as he tickles a flailing and giggling child. Darkness as molecules scatter, striking a sunset in just the right way to produce something so awesome, so magical, so very vibrant that we must pull the car over, stop, and give thanks and awe where it is due.

Yes, give thanks. In darkness, and in light; both for darkness and for light. God is present in both, creator of both, lover of both.

In this season of giving thanks, take it as a reminder to daily pause in even the most mundane… Crumbs on a dried-milk-crusted table surface, dirtied by still ever-so-slightly chubbied hands. Yes, it must be cleaned, and I’m tired of scrubbing dried milk off of tables. Why am I still cleaning the same messes after all of this time? It’s so annoying that there is still a day of my life with dried milk on the table. How does this keep happening??? Eight years of dried milk on tables… But little hands, time allowed to touch and squeeze before they thin, and grow more still, and well-nourished bodies of children that are mine to love, in a home that would never be, if not for light and shadow, joy and pain.

Every single moment, dear ones, is worthy of thanks, both for what was, what is, and what is yet to come. Use this season as the reminder needed, to pause and give thanks in all things; to have the faith to see where we are otherwise blind.