Under Shelter

It was a Monday morning, almost the last day of September. I was rushing through the morning and had just gotten the kids on the bus. I was loading the car with my laptop to head to work, when something caused me to glance out the garage door.

The sunlight was streaming through my neighbor’s trees in such a beautiful way. It looked golden and almost tangible. When I stopped and stared, I spotted something curious: I noticed I could see tiny bits of something floating in the air. I walked out of the garage and into the light, and the bits vanished. I couldn’t see them anymore. When I went back into the garage, I could see them again. I had no idea what these mysterious bits were, and I was already late for my day anyway. I had to release the mystery and move on with my morning.

I loaded a few more things in the car and got in myself, and pulled out of the garage and onto my street. That’s when I realized fog had moved in. The funny thing about fog is you don’t know you’re in it until you try to look beyond yourself. You can’t see fog three inches in front of you; it’s visible only when you look further away. Fog is more noticeable in the distance, and until this morning I had no idea that fog was little tiny bits floating in the air. I guess I always thought it was more like smoke. But what I noticed when I first entered my garage that morning was the tiny precursor fog drops that were rolling in to my area.

So… thanks for the science lesson, Elizabeth. Yes? Uh… no. There’s more than a scientific observation going on here. What I realized by seeing the fog that morning is this: sometimes you can’t see the fog at all when you’re in it. You can be in thick air, and not even know it. Things may look “normal,” but then you step into a different position and you can see just how abnormal things really are. So often, we can be in a figurative fog in our lives because we’re so busy being stuck in the Right Now that we don’t look around to check out the rest of the view. We never see the forest because we’re focused on one single tree.

Remember how I couldn’t see the bits in the air unless I was standing inside my garage? Sometimes we have to step out of our surroundings to see the fine mist that is settling in our lives. When we seek refuge in a strong shelter, we get perspective on our standing in life and can more easily see what surrounds us.