Eyes of the Heart, The: Seeing God's Hand in the Everyday Moments of Life

by Tracie Peterson

  The bear was fluffy and full faced, however, and my son was convinced that this was a kitty. Kitty soon became a vested member of the family. He and my son, Erik, shared the strangest relationship of love that I’ve ever witnessed between a child and a toy.

  When Erik would be upset and crying, he would pause in mid-cry to cry for Kitty. We witnessed this in disbelief the first couple of times. Erik would cry, tears streaming down his face. Then Kitty would cry, Erik holding him up, saying, “Mew, mew, mew.”

  Kitty became a companion extraordinaire. Kitty traveled when Erik traveled. If Erik went to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, Kitty went there as well. If Erik went to the zoo, Kitty went to the zoo. Kitty has traveled to more states (even one foreign country) than most people I know. I don’t want to tell you how many frequent-flyer miles Kitty has logged, but let’s just say he can go first-class to Europe anytime he wants.

  Kitty started out fluffy and clean, all gray and white with a sweet, contented, Buddha-like smile on his face. He was stuffed full and sat up by himself in regal form. Twelve years later, however, he’s had the stuffing loved right out of him. His fur has been loved off, and he’s undergone many rounds of plastic surgery.

  One such surgery came as a result of my son’s having taken Kitty to spend the night with some family friends. Erik hadn’t experienced overnights on his own before, so he took Kitty with him. After all, if you’re going to be in a strange place, it’s best to have a friend along. We warned him that something could happen to Kitty. He could get misplaced or damaged, but our son wouldn’t take no for answer. If Kitty couldn’t go, he wouldn’t go.

  What neither Kitty nor my son expected was Dumplin’. Dumplin’ is a sweetheart of a golden retriever. Generally mild-mannered and a friend to all, nobody thought anything about Dumplin’ and Kitty spending time together. But as is often the case, tragedy came in the unexpected.

  I was on my way to bed when the phone call came. A very subdued little boy spoke to me from the other end of the line. “Mom?” he said, his voice slightly quivering. “There’s been an accident.”

  Of course, my mind ran rampant. Had he broken his arm? Cut his foot? Was it some other type of accident—you know, the embarrassing bathroom kind?

  “What’s happened?” I asked, trying my best to keep my voice from sounding too anxious.

  “Dumplin’ chewed off Kitty’s nose.” His voice broke, but he recovered quickly. “Mom, come get us.”

  My friend came on the line about that time and explained that Kitty and Dumplin’ had been left alone to share amiable company, when they apparently had some sort of disagreement. We believe it might have been theological or political, but, of course, we can’t prove it. The disagreement resulted in Dumplin’s chewing off not only the nose but a good portion of the face. Stuffing was pouring out, and the nose was missing.

  My heart went out to my son. I knew what he was feeling. He was shocked and mortified that this had happened, but he was also heartbroken because his best friend was wounded.

  “You don’t have to come get him,” my friend said. “After all, it is after midnight.”

  “No, that’s all right,” I replied, knowing that my son would never sleep a wink so long as Kitty was in misery.

  I left my daughters and husband at home and set out on the rescue mission. As I drove across town, I tried to think of how I would deal with the situation. I didn’t want to baby my son too much. It was bad enough that I was giving in to getting him in the middle of the night. I knew the psychologists would probably never agree with my actions, but I didn’t care. I heard the brokenness in my little boy’s voice. I had to be there for him, to prove that I was never more than a phone call away.

  When I arrived at my friend’s house, the place was in mild chaos. The boys all met me at the door. Erik fought hard to keep from crying as he hugged me close and held up the plastic-wrapped bundle.

  “He’s . . . in here,” Erik whispered stoically.

  “Erik said you would fix Kitty tonight,” one of the boys said.

  Another one chimed in, “But we told him you wouldn’t ’cause it’s so late, and Kitty is so torn up.”

  My son looked to me, his expression full of faith. “I told them you could fix Kitty,” Erik said, as if to answer all their doubts. “I told them you knew it was important, and you would do it for me.”

  There is nothing in this world that would have kept me from fixing that poor ragged bear for my son. His faith in me was overwhelming. I could have broken both arms on the way back home, and still I would have found a way to stitch Kitty back together. I wanted very much for my son to believe—to have faith—in my love for him.

  We turned to go, and my girlfriend apologized. “Oh, by the way, we couldn’t find Kitty’s nose.”

  I nodded, seeing the impossibility of it all. I don’t think I have ever prayed harder for the skills of a surgeon than I did that night. Once we were in the car, my son broke into tears and leaned against me, heartbroken.

  “I hate that dog!” he sobbed.

  “No, don’t hate Dumplin’,” I said. “She’s just a dog, and she didn’t know any better. She didn’t do this to be mean to Kitty or to you.”

  Erik calmed down a bit. “You will fix Kitty, won’t you?”

  I heard the need for reassurance in his voice. “I’ll do what I can.”

  “And you’ll do it when we get home?”

  “Absolutely,” I promised.

  Erik leaned back and nodded. He wiped his tears away. “I told them you would.”

  I don’t know about you, but I want that kind of faith. I want to bring my broken toys to God and know without the slightest hint of doubt that He will fix them. I want to be able to say with as much confidence as a small boy that my Father would take care of the matter—and take care of it in a manner that would befit my need.

  In Mark 10:14–15, Jesus is rather indignant with his disciples. People are bringing their children to him for a blessing—a touch, but the disciples see this as a nuisance. Jesus tells them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

  These verses bless my heart. Maybe it’s because I always feel rather childlike and intimidated by great theological minds with multiple initials following their names. Maybe it’s because I’ve always known that God is the Creator of the universe, but I’ve never cared about how He did it beyond His speaking it into existence. And maybe it’s because when I’m faced with difficult situations, I go running to the lap of my heavenly Father first, and that’s where I want to stay.

  My heart often feels very much like a child’s heart. The new and wondrous things of this earth easily excite me. And I trust my Father in heaven to provide what I need, when I need it, before I even know I need it.

  Does this mean I’ve never had any doubts? Certainly not! Does it mean that I’ve never questioned God about bad situations? Nope. Does it mean that I’m always in right accordance with my Father because of some great faith within me? Absolutely not!

  It simply means that after years and years of taking my needs to God, He has never failed to stay up late enough to fix them. He’s never denied me in front of my friends. He’s never turned away, saying, “Well, you knew there was a possibility of this happening; now deal with it on your own.”

  So how do we receive the kingdom of God like a little child?

  As I stitched on Kitty’s broken face, with tiny dedicated stitches, I couldn’t help but think of God and how His love for me was even greater than my love for Erik. How He desires to heal our wounds, comfort us in times of pain, and fix the wrongs. I wanted to display my trust in God with the same overwhelming confidence that my son had displayed trust in me.

  I finished Kitty’s surgery with a tremendous sense of accomplishment. He was a little worse for the wear, but not much. He was still smiling with
his renewed simplistic smile, and he now had a new nose, brown instead of black. But most important, he was still Kitty.

  Erik had waited for me in the living room, and when I entered the room, I felt like a doctor exiting surgery. And truly, that’s what I was. Erik looked up at me with no less hope than that of a parent awaiting word on his injured child.

  I held up Kitty.

  Erik smiled and took his worn bear in hand. “Thanks, Mom,” he said, hugging me tight. “I knew you could do it.”

  The look on his face said it all. The trust was evident. There was no room for a single thread of doubt.

  O God, I want the faith of an eight-year-old.

  26

  The Pain of Rejection

  One of the most heartbreaking pains in the world is to be rejected by someone you love. Especially when it’s someone who should have loved you. The pain is like a dull ache that refuses to be stilled. There’s an emptiness that seems bottomless, a canyon that seems to widen and grow ever deeper as the years go by. That’s the pain of being rejected by someone who should have loved you—someone who should have cared.

  In America, we see the tragedy of this rejection in such great proportions. Daily thousands, hundreds of thousands, of children awaken to the fact of life without one or both parents. They must face the cold, hard truth that someone who should have loved them, who should have cared enough to be a part of their lives, isn’t there anymore.

  We wonder why so many teenagers become delinquent. Why teenagers turn to sexual love at such an early age. We see children killing children. We hear the sorrow of their hearts in the deadliness of their actions.

  When I was two and a half years old, my mother and father were divorced. It was one of those unavoidable tragedies that we see every day in life. There were good reasons for the breakup of this family. There were even biblical reasons. But it wasn’t desired, and it wasn’t pleasant.

  Sometime later my mother remarried a wonderful, kindhearted man. He was a good stepfather. In fact, he is the only father I remember. However, he could never fill the emptiness of the place left by my biological father.

  There was a place in my heart that had been ripped away. My stepfather tried to fill that empty place. He worked hard to provide for my mother and me. He drove us to church every Sunday. He was affectionate and fun loving. He was everything a father should be. He was everything my biological father refused to be. The most important thing was that my stepfather was there for me. He stayed and didn’t go away into some void where people are X’d out of your life.

  I know at least a dozen friends and family members who can relate the same story. Oh, the pain that has flooded their hearts. That ripped-out place was never filled—it simply scarred over. In some cases, it festered and became infected until the whole body was poisoned and affected.

  Sometimes the scar has faded with time. Like with my experience. Having a family, a loving stepfather and mother, and a new baby sister, my wound healed to some extent, and the scar faded over the years. But sometimes I still wonder why. Why did my biological father leave my life and never come back? Why didn’t he care enough to get his act together and be a real father to me? Why did he forsake me?

  I used to think how this problem is unique to mankind. I thought it was a problem God could not entirely understand. After all, God is the great I Am. He has always been and will always be. How could He know what it felt like to be deserted—forsaken by the one person who should never have left your side?

  Then I thought of Jesus on the cross. I thought of His pain and misery. He was beaten, scorned, rejected, and delivered into the hands of people who didn’t care what happened to Him. He was just one more crazy lunatic in a long line of religious and political fanatics.

  But He still had His Father in heaven. He still had the Holy Spirit to comfort Him in His hour of need. He walked the road to the cross, still in the company of the only one who would never die—never walk away—never leave Him.

  But on the cross, bearing the sins of the world, bearing my sin and yours, Jesus came to that horrible, awful place where God seemed distant. When I was young, my Sunday school teacher said that God could not look upon sin, and Jesus was, at that point, like a very big, ugly ball of sin. When I was in an adult Sunday school class, the pastor said that Jesus, being the very essence of God in human form, was an abomination to himself.

  God looked away.

  Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

  Those words are so precious to me. Jesus knew. He really knew what it felt like to have His Father turn away. He knows what it feels like to have someone who has cared before—who should be there for every single pain and tear—no longer be there.

  But God wasn’t absent for long, and Jesus knew it was all a part of the plan. How else could He be our High Priest—to know the deepest sorrows of our hearts, and to fill the emptiness?

  Jesus is also the only one who will ever fill the empty places created by people. Jesus is the only one who knows how very frightening it can be to feel abandoned.

  Maybe you have an empty place in your heart. Perhaps your mother or father walked away and never came back. It could have been by his or her choice, or maybe he or she died. In any case, it still feels like abandonment. It still hurts.

  That empty place was never filled—partly because you always kept hoping against all odds that it was somehow a mistake, and partly because you wanted to believe your parent would come back.

  Maybe a close friend has decided to end your friendship. You haven’t got a clue as to why she no longer wants to be friends—you only have the emptiness felt by her having gone.

  Jesus can fill that vacuum. He can take away the longing in your soul, the rejection you feel. Jesus is the only one who will never in a million gazillion years walk away.

  Why?

  Because He knows how it feels. Because He loves you with an unconditional love and has promised never to leave you or forsake you, and because you belong to Him.

  “But what if I sin? What if I do something horrible?” you may ask.

  He’ll still love you. He’ll still be there.

  “But what if I forget to pray or read my Bible?”

  He still loves you. He’s still there.

  “But what if I walk away?”

  No problem. He still loves you.

  Does He want you to sin or forget to pray or to walk away? No. He doesn’t want to break communion with you for even a brief moment. Because He loves you and He wants to spend time with you.

  But if you walk away, He’ll still be there. He’ll stand faithfully watching for you—calling to you. “Come home, beloved. Come home.”

  You can never outdistance yourself from Jesus. You can never hide away so completely that He cannot find you.

  Do you have an empty place inside that needs to be filled? Is there a spot that aches so horribly that nothing—drugs, money, people—can fill it?

  Come home, beloved. Jesus is waiting to pour himself into that empty place. He wants to fill you so completely that all the little spots, as well as the big ones, are no longer empty, but instead radiate the light of His love.

  People will die or forsake you. Possessions will fall apart and fade away. But Jesus is forever.

  Let Jesus fill you up.

  27

  Great Expectations

  Expectations come in two packages: the good kind and the bad kind. When I was four months along in my third pregnancy, I held great expectations for the outcome. We were excited about the baby—hopeful it would be a boy, but happy to take whatever God chose so long as he or she was healthy.

  Like many expectant mothers, I anticipated the birth of my child with great wonder and awe. The miracle of birth, the joy of God’s hand upon this small life growing inside of me, all of those incredible moments from the first heartbeat to the first kick—it was amazing and wonderful.

  Then everything changed.

  “Your blood tests show t
hat something is wrong,” the doctor told me.

  The foundations of my expectations were shattered and lay in ruins all around me. Tests suggested a serious problem with the baby—problems that would result in severe retardation and death.

  “My suggestion is that you abort this pregnancy,” one doctor stated matter-of-factly. “You’re young and healthy and can certainly have more children. Why saddle your family with a child who will only cause you grief and pain?”

  I was devastated. I wanted this baby, anticipated this baby with the same joy and wonder that I had my first two children. But in the doctor’s few words, my great expectations of joy were transferred to expectations of dread and worry.

  I would like to say that I handled the matter in a peaceful, angelic sort of spirit. I did not. I was angry and hurt and scared. I didn’t believe in abortion. No matter what the result, I knew I could not end my child’s life. I felt strongly that life and death were choices better left up to God. Like Job, I wanted to stand strong and say, “Though you slay me, yet will I trust you.” Because I really did trust God. I might not have understood, but I did trust Him.

  Trusting didn’t make the situation any easier; in fact, it made it harder. I longed for a quick and simple solution. Abortion certainly wasn’t the answer. Even if I had seen it as an option, I’ve never believed that abortion was anyone’s “easy way out.” I know women who’ve had abortions. There was nothing easy about it.

  My expectation upon learning I was pregnant was that this pregnancy would go as smoothly and simply as any pregnancy could. That was what I had prepared myself for—what I had planned for. Problems were not factored in, because I held the utmost optimism that nothing could or would go wrong. Those things happened to other people, not to me.

  There’s something about becoming cocky and self-sufficient that always sets us up for a life lesson. This was one of my life lessons, and let me tell you, it was the painful kind.

  I thought every day about that baby and how very much I wanted him or her to be born healthy and whole. I railed at God . . . demanding answers . . . pleading for understanding . . . begging for the life of my child. I remember specifically telling God that He couldn’t convince me that anything good could come out of this situation—this time of testing and trial.