I look back down at the page.  Black and white with a pop of color.

          Red letters pop … ”If you can believe, all things are possible …”

          A black-letter comeback … “I do believe—help my unbelief!”

≈

I got trust issues with God.  I believe.  Then again sometimes I don’t.  It’s just that He can be so … unpredictable.  

“Do I contradict myself?  Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”  Walt Whitman says it.   Reminds me of God.

A Contradiction.

I whisper to myself the words of the Psalmist, “How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God!  How vast is the sum of them!  If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand…”

An unearthing in the dew-drenched garden of my heart.  New understanding emerges.

Could it be that when God seemingly contradicts Himself, … my heart, mind and spirit are being s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d to receive the multitude of His thoughts towards me?

That in the place of contradiction, the Spirit of God desires to reveal Himself to me in a new way?  An unveiling of sorts … an encounter with His thoughts that enlarges me?  That causes me to know Him more?  That causes me to love more?

≈

Dressed in black and white with a pop of color, I walk my best-dressed self out of my office and onto the sidewalk.

Businessmen and women on every corner; in the restaurants and cafes, outside of Starbucks discussing local politics and drinking Macchiatos.

And then I see him.  A homeless man sprawled out in the middle of the alley.

A contradiction.

Delivery truck about to make a blind turn into the alley.  I run, arms waving  like a madwoman.  The driver makes a quick maneuver around us and keeps on going.

The man is not moving.  Not sure whether he’s dead or just had too much to drink.  I lean in close.  No question–too much to drink.  And hasn’t had a bath in a while either.

A passer-by calls 9-1-1 and keeps on walking.  I kneel next to the man and wait.  He’s agitated.  Wants to be left alone.  Don’t care.  I’m not leaving.

I place my persimmon red, over-priced designer purse under his black and white bedraggled head.  Black and white with a pop of color.

A contradiction.

“Why are you here?”

“Because I’m your friend”.

“You’re not my friend.”

In the contradiction, I remember the words, “How precious are your thoughts towards ME-HIM, O God.”

In the contradiction, I recall the words of Terence, “I am human.  Therefore, nothing is alien to me”.  

In the contradiction, I encounter the love of God for one of His own and I am enlarged.

“Yes, I am.”

Quiet tears escape and run down his bristly face.

In the moment, a decision made.  It’s really okay if God seems contradictory.  His  thoughts towards me are vast.  He is large.  I am small.  And it’s in the unpredictables of life, that I am enlarged.  It’s in the contradictions of life that I learn to love.