An Odd Spot in Life

I'm struggling with Christmas this year.   It's an odd season of life I find myself in.  I don't get it and people around me don't get it.  I'm not sure what "it" is.  Christmas, as we have done it in the past, has lost some of it's glitter and glimmer.  Hannah, my Christmas-aholic, is subdued this year.  Alex is content with what he has.  When I've asked them why its different this year, they just say their focus has changed.  It's almost like something has died.

But what is it?  Why is there this feeling in the bottom of my stomach?  Why have tears come so much easier than laughter this season?  Am I losing my mind?

I was listening to the radio in the car and praying to God to give me the words for a narrative I am writing today.  Asking God to make the words that match His heart and the real meaning of Christmas.  Asking God to give me words that those at the service will understand, really understand, why we even celebrate Christmas.  Then the song Give Me Your Eyes by Brandon Heath came on.  I had been praying that exact message when the song began.  I have been praying that God would allow me to see the world around me from His eyes and to be able to put it in words.  I realized God has been answering that prayer and that is part of the season of life I have entered.

Give me your eyes for just one second

Give me your eyes so I can see

Everything that I keep missing

Give me your love for humanity

Give me your arms for the broken hearted

The ones that are far beyond my reach

Give me you heart for the ones forgotten

Give me your eyes so I can see

I have begun, and only begun, to glimpse the world through God's eyes.  I have so far to go and yet just this tiny glimpse has changed my life. 

Most of you think I am referring to Spain.  Yes, I have seen a country of lost people in a way I have never seen before.  Not because I wanted to see Spain that way, but because God answered my prayer.  I keep sharing statistics with you, but I see so much more than numbers.

When I recently learned that Spain has the highest rate of cocaine and heroin addiction in all of Europe I cried.  I saw people who have no hope who have turned away from the only true source of hope to death.  If you know me, I'm not usually all that emotional, yet the tears flowed.  I was just glimpsing at them through the eyes of Christ.

More recently I have discovered a population right here in Greensboro.  The refugees from Vietnam, Burma, and the Congo.  Did I ask to see these people?  No, I asked to see the world from God's eyes and He opened just a tiny window. 

Oh - don't get me wrong.  As I have asked to see the world and people through God's eyes I have seen so many precious things - beautiful creation, the voices of children, the laughter of mistakes, the arms stretched around a hurting one, families, voices of worship, and more. 

The problem with this prayer is that it has shook my world.  My priorities are changing (even more than before).  My heart's desires are shifting.  My calendar looks different.  I feel like I no longer "fit in."  It's just an odd spot in life.  When I began to pray to see the world from God's perspective I am not sure what I expected.  I wasn't prepared to begin to feel like an outsider in my normal circles of life.  I wasn't prepared to be as heartbroken as I am.  I wasn't prepared to become so tender hearted. 

And now I sit, less than two weeks from Christmas, trying to figure out how it all fits together.