Finding Shelter. Russell J. Levenson Jr.

The psalmist would remind the reader, “O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 136:1). We do not dismiss what went wrong in Eden, but what if we also had a change of view and considered what went right? God did not stop the story when things got off to a rocky start—it just became part of the story—a story He actually plays a part in by revealing the intention to watch over His children and care for them, even when they stray.

      The reason I begin with this reflection is that I find in my work way too many people live in the past. They become weighed down with their guilt, sin, mistakes, bad decisions. When that becomes a part of who you are—grafted into your heart—then it can begin to define you. You have a myopic view that only sees the sin, and it’s easy to transfer that view onto how you believe God sees you.

      But give the kaleidoscope a turn or two, and remember that God is always making life out of mud pies, if we would but let Him. My hunch is the clothes God fashioned for Adam and Eve fit just right—perhaps God even took a step back after donning His firstborn creatures, with needle clenched between divine teeth, a smile and a pat and a “There . . . there . . . that ought to do it.” Why would He do such a thing? It was God’s way of saying, “Let us get on with life—exhale the past, inhale the future.” A change of view, indeed.

       A New Leaf

Do you need to turn over a new leaf when it comes to understanding God? None of us is perfect, and certainly when we sin, confession is good for the soul; but do we live in the past, or can we turn the past over and live into the present and future? When we hand over our dark places to God, He not only tosses them away (“as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us,” the psalmist writes), but He also will “cleanse us from all unrighteousness” as the Apostle John would write—as if the past never happened at all. In other words, God forgives the repentant sinner and He does not hold it against you—perhaps you should do the same to the one in the mirror. Perhaps you need a change of view.³

       A Prayer

Lord, help me this day to give You the dark places in my heart and soul. As I do, give me the faith to hold fast to Your grace and mercy, which restore me to the child You created me to be. Amen.⁴

3 Psalm 103:12; 1 John 1:9.

4 Any prayer without citation is written by the author.

Meditation 2

       God in the Shadows

      God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”

      —Genesis 9:12–13

As the axis of the earth shifts, we begin to see longer shadows at day’s end; shadows that bespeak the coming of shorter days and longer nights. Sometimes long nights can be unnerving, frightening. Light and dark have often been metaphors for good and evil—Jesus’s followers are called the children of light, whereas Satan’s minions are called children of darkness.⁵

      It is, frankly, sometimes hard to see the light of God when the dark shadows of the world creep about us. I will not use this space to unfold some thoughts on the “whys” around the world’s darkness; I will circle back to that later. But for now, no one could argue that we do not have great darkness, great evil, in the world.

      The story of Noah is known to every Christian from Vacation Bible School age to adulthood. We tend to focus on all the happy parts of the story—cute animals, two by two, strutting into the protective ark with a small band of family members. We talk about the flood, but we usually do not bring up the fact that the 150 days of rain that flooded the face of the known earth was sent to wash away the evil of the world—that humans and animals were perishing in those flood waters. No, we lean in not to those unsavory parts of this story, but to the protection of God, the resting of the ark on Mount Ararat, the dove returning with an olive leaf as if to announce the good news that the waters were receding. And then, of course, there is the rainbow . . . God’s promise that flood waters will not be used to cleanse the earth again.

      At a distance, it is a good story—almost a fun story. Untold pounds of construction paper and crayons have been used by children to create happy memories about a God who protected Noah and the animals, and who protects us as well. But do we always feel protected? Do you? Do we, as God’s children, wrestle with different kinds of darkness and wish sometimes that God would wipe away the evil in the world once more? I confess I do.

      Many years ago, I was at a church convention in Shreveport, Louisiana, when I was called by a social worker friend to the hospital bed of a child who was facing certain death. I did not know the child, but he had been assigned to my friend and her care after he had been mercilessly beaten to the verge of death by his foster care father. She told me all of this before I came into the room, so I had a moment or two to digest it, but the moment I came in—the moment I saw that pitiful, swollen, bruised and frail little body, surrounded by weeping nurses and caretakers—my heart just broke . . . it broke to pieces.

      I was told there was no chance that this child would live, but they wanted me to baptize him before they turned off any life support. We gathered our composure and began the service. Everyone was in prayer for this toddler. To this day, I will remember as I poured a bit of baptismal water on the forehead of that child, how one stream of the water ran down to the bridge of his nose, then to his closed eyelid and down his cheek—almost like a tear. We all saw it, and we all began to weep yet again. We prayed again, we hugged, but I left that hospital room utterly desolate.

      As I came out to my car, I could hardly think clearly. A huge thunderstorm began; rain fell in thick sheets as I drove back to my hotel. It was raining so hard it was almost difficult to drive. As I made my way through the sheets of water, I began to weep again as I thought of that child. I confess, I was angry that our loving God could allow those kinds of things to happen in our world. Could God not have wiped out the abuser before he laid one hand on that child? I recall hitting the palms of my hands against the steering wheel and saying out loud, “Why, Lord? Why?”

      I was truly at my wit’s end. Please do not think I am trying to diminish one iota the horrible scene that still haunts me to this day, but after a while the rains began to subside. My car actually reached the top of a hill from which I had a fairly clear view of the entire downtown area and there—through my own tear-filled eyes—I saw a rainbow, a rainbow that literally stretched from one end of the city to the other. It remained in the sky through the rest of my drive. When I got back to my hotel, I told my wife about it and we pulled back the window blinds of our room. The rain had stopped and the rainbow was still there.

      If I am honest, I do not know fully what all of that means; but I will take it for what it is worth. God sends beautiful sunsets over hospice wards, sunrises over battlefields, and rainbows—perhaps with the hope that they will help mend our ways, or at the very least speak to our broken hearts; a reminder that even when the long shadows of darkness stretch over us, God is there.