Embracing the Mystery
Hannah and I took a “mystery walk” yesterday as the sun was dropping low. A heart-shaped stone lying on the ground (okay, it was a bit of an oblong circle, but we imagined it to be a heart) served as the springboard for our create-it-as-you-go story. A poof of white stuffing, a yellow blob of foam, and an octopus-shaped tree added depth to our case. Hannah recorded all of our musings in a small red notebook while I wondered aloud about the tread marks imprinted on a patch of fine white sand sprinkled curiously on the sidewalk. The impromptu thunderstorm that sent us racing back to Grandma’s house was the perfect un-planned end to our playful game of duo detectives.
As Hannah unloaded our “clues” on Grandma’s counter top, she shared our theory about a beach burglar who was crossing the country with a stash of stolen jewels. She breathlessly detailed the footprint in the sand and the broken window on a storage shed at the end of the street. “We think that a thief found some buried treasure near the ocean in Florida,” Hannah said seriously. “And he’s been crossing the country ever since. Right now, he’s hiding out in that old abandoned shed down the street,” my story-teller told her sister. Hannah’s eyes narrowed and her excited voice dropped an octave. With a touch of caution, she warned, “You’d better stay inside when the sun sets, because tonight, I think the pirate thief is going to slip away and head for California where he can cash in his jewels and get REALLY rich!”
Lizzy raised an eyebrow and asked, “How do you KNOW that sand in the sidewalk wasn’t spilled from some one’s sandbox?”
Hannah looked indignantly at her disbelieving sister and replied, “I don’t KNOW anything. That’s the whole fun of this game!”
I smiled as I considered the truth of my seven-year-old’s words and reflected on my own journey of faith. Sometimes the “need to know” spoils the sheer adventure of the story. Contemporary scholar Ravi Zacharias warns, “If we are to understand wonder, we must see that the first destroyer of wonder is anything that takes away the legitimate mystery of life and living.”
For years, I’ve been guilty of trying to steal the pen from the Author of Life. I’ve traded mystery for monotony as I’ve tried to write my own predictable story rather than trusting Him to script an adventure beyond my dreams.
In her groundbreaking book, Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World, author Joanna Weaver asks,
“What is it about us women that creates such a desperate need to know, to always understand? We want an itinerary for our life, and if God doesn’t immediately produce one, we set out to write our own.
I need to know, we tell ourselves.
NO. God answers softly. You need to trust.”
If you’ve grown weary of trying to script the perfect story –for yourself, your children, your mate–join me this week as I pass the pen back to the Author of Life and embrace the mystery of faith-fueled living!
The Overflow: Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required. Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that’s wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons? Matthew 23:24b, The Message
