Happy Crashiversary to Us!

The Wreckage:

September 4, 2003. It was a Thursday night and my brother Eric and I were on our way home from church. He had his learner's permit so I tossed him the keys after carefully loading my guitar into the hatchback next to some class notes from the courses I'd begun one week earlier. 10 minutes later, I was crawling over my shattered guitar to exit the wreckage through the rear hatch. I remember that my coursework was scattered all across the road and I felt like it was imperative that I pick it all up before it blew away. There was a crowd of people--I'm still not sure where they all came from. Some of them tried to convince me to sit down and I think I shouted at them, "I know you think I'm crazy...but I'm a poor college student and I need to get my homework!" Poor bystanders. Turns out I was a little bit crazy…and I later obtained the gpa to prove it and the prescription to treat it.

It's funny how our minds remember things. I remember things so vividly from that night—even some things that I believed to be true, but later learned were not actually as I remember. I see the accident in flashes of memories. But it's not just the accident. I see the time after it in flashes of memories, too. But what is so aggravating is that I don't think I see anyone else—I mean really see anyone else—in those flashes for at least six months. It was all about me: my fear, my pain, my injustice, my academic and emotional struggles.

The Survivors:

There's something about hardships that give us tunnel vision. When we are hurting our pain consumes our sensations and emotions so that all we can feel and see is ourselves and our own experiences. We forget that there's a whole world existing outside of ourselves and that this world is made up of individuals who live their own story and swim through their own puddles of tears. I lived as if I was the center of the world for over six months. I'm afraid that some people live like it their entire lives, so consumed by their pain that they are unable to connect deeply with anyone else. This only enhances their isolation and increases their pain.

It's not like it has to be a big, dramatic pain either. Recently when I received news of disconcerting possibilities at my church I immediately began to throw myself a pity party. It took me a couple days to begin to wonder what these possibilities could mean for other people in our church family. I'd like to change that. I want to have a heart that sees beyond my fears and pain to the needs of people around me. But how do I do that? How do I go about changing my heart?

I think the only answer is to keep my eyes on Jesus. Which really makes sense. "Set your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of your faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross…" He looked beyond the pain and the shame of the cross to see our need to be in a right relationship with God. Because of him, we not only receive hope of future joy and rest, but we are also challenged to imitate his humility and selflessness.

Lord, thank you for seeing beyond your pain to the neediness of the world separated from you by their sin. Transform my heart to be more like yours. Please help me to not get trapped in the tunnel vision of hardships. Help me to accept these hardships as opportunities to experience you in new ways and help me to see others the way you see them so that I can serve and encourage them to seek you in their times of hurting.

Years later--NOW I can see how God was working what seemed bad for good in my life.