In December my friend Lara broke her leg.
The circumstances in which she broke her leg were not ‘normal’, at least not for someone who lives in the city. Lara and her husband had long-planned a trip to visit his parents in Germany. The plan became reality as they set off a couple of weeks before Christmas with their two little ones.
The agenda included a lot of visiting and a lot of snow activities — in the Alps. With Germany so close to Switzerland, her in-laws had some wonderful outings planned.
But during a nighttime sledding, Lara hit a block of ice breaking both the sled, and her leg. The bone snapped in two. The x-rays made me shudder.
At this point they were alone on the mountain. Her husband, slightly ahead of her, heard the shout and looking back saw the sled in half. He knew it couldn’t be good. He ran back and together they devised a home-made splint to secure the leg in her boot. She knew immediately that she had broken her leg.
He took her to a place of safety, where he then proceeded to run into the town to get his parents and get her to a hospital as soon as possible.
So there she was, all alone, leg broken, in a country that is foreign to her waiting for her husband to bring help. But as Lara was telling the story she said this “Here I was. In the Alps – the mountains all around me, the moon reflecting bright off the snow. Glory all around me. It almost didn’t matter that I had broken a leg!” Her eyes saw the glory all around.
I can’t get the image out of my mind. In those moments she was able to see past her circumstances, able to see the glory of something far greater than an accident that would soon have her in surgery getting pins in her leg and a cast that would limit her mobility.
There was glory all around.
I think about this today, carrying the image close to my heart. For I am caught in a dull gray cubicle–cubicle number 4008. While I long to soar and see glory I feel my wings catch on synthetic walls and a 6×6 foot space. The thin window faces a parking garage and to see the sky I strain my head and look up four floors.
I come in so motivated, so determined to exercise God-given creativity and passion. But the passion begins to die with the grumpy Barista, the heart beat slows with the unanswered “Good Morning!” greeting to the security guard and flat lines as I get off the elevator and walk through the dark cubicle corridor.
I am caught in a cubicle; a government-issued cubicle.
But then I think of Lara with a broken bone and pulsating pain. I think of being alone and cold and yet seeing glory all around. It’s this image that transports me beyond circumstance. It’s true that the subway is a far cry from the Alps, that the moonlit glory of majestic mountains is nowhere near the reality of busy, city streets, that the dull gray of a cubicle holds no comparison to a moon lighting up the dark sky and reflecting off snow-covered mountain peaks. But there is, if I can see it, glory all around.
So I look beyond the circumstances of life to the Eternal, praying that I will have eyes to see the glory all around.
Where do you see glory all around?
*Picture credit http://pixabay.com/en/alps-nature-landscape-mountains-238493/
