"If I could just see You..."

"If I could just see You,
everything will be alright.
If I'd see You,
the storminess will turn to light.

And I will walk on water,
and You will catch me if I fall.
And I will get lost into Your eyes,
and everything will be alright."

I was listening to this hauntingly beautiful version of Lifehouse's "Storm," while reports of tornadoes ripped through Oklahoma and Missouri, to our west.  And for me, there was something so peaceful about its message that night.

"If I could just see You...
I know everything will be alright..." 

I was grateful...so grateful.  Earlier that afternoon I had been so deeply shaken by a series of events, that I found myself sitting in my car, in one of the clergy spaces in the hospital parking lot, just trying to calm my self before going in to see a patient.  And as I sat there,  those words softly poured through me,

"If I could just see you
I know everything will be alright..."

So instead of closing my eyes, I opened them.  And that was when I saw a young boy, of about 10 or 11 years old, pushing his grandfather's wheelchair up a steep ramp.  He was loving and gentle, strong and wise...it was written on his face, in the way he came around the front of the wheelchair to comfort his grandfather, and in the curve of his back as he bent to tuck in the lap quilt that had shifted during their ascent.  His smile was almost beatific.  There was nothing but patience, and grace, in his every move. 

I was seeing Him, God, in him...and everything was suddenly put into perspective...and it was all, alright...every single thing was all right.

I stepped out of the car, and made my way through the labyrinth of hospital elevators, wings, and hallways...and everywhere I looked, there He was.  In the smile of a stranger, the tenderness of an orderly, the patience of a nurse, the strength of a daughter, the grace of a son, the love of a spouse...a child, a neighbor, a parent.

I saw God's face in the cafe clerk, who inquired after the mother of a customer, who'd obviously been living at the hospital, and had become a "regular."  I saw it in the gift shop attendant, who held a young woman who'd collapsed with exhaustion in her arms, when the clerk asked her whether her mother liked roses, or tulips.  Everywhere I looked...the face of God...a whisper of divinity, in the song of humanity...with all its heartbreak, compassion, and hope.

By the time I'd walked back to my car, I couldn't even remember what I had been so shaken by...

Tonight I watched CNN with a different eye.  I refused to watch the grim horror of a city shredded by the devastation of a storm, I was listening for the voice of God in every sound byte, and looking for the face of God in every pixel of film. Reporters pitching in with the recovery effort, police officers comforting grieving families, children helping their parents sort through the rubble of what was once a loved home, and parents looking for a favorite toy to bring to a frightened child.   In these signs of God's presence, it wasn't hard to see, that in the ways that really mattered, everything is all right. 

That's enough beauty to bring me to my knees...

with Love,

Kate