Through the sunroof

The gigantic tree by my back door looks like it will uproot my back porch if the wind ever blows too strongly. The trunk butts right up to the house, but the huge old tree grew up and out at an angle, its branches extending to form a leafy canopy over my driveway. Never one to be practical, I have a white car that is beautiful when it happens to be clean but otherwise serves as a large, blank, inviting canvas for the birds and squirrels that cavort above it.

As I walked to my car the other day, I was grumbling to myself about the nasty trail of multicolored droppings all over my car. I was also annoyed because my allergies were bothering me. Feeling sorry for myself, I sat in the driver’s seat, grabbed the bottle of eye drops I’d left in the center console, and tilted my head back to administer the drops. Even though I have a sunroof, I don’t use it much. The wind messes up my long hair, which gets pulled up and out of the opening, and the sun shines through and glints in my eyes, so I usually keep the roof closed tight. But on this particular day, the sliding panel was open, leaving only the clear glass above me, which had somehow not been hit by the little birdy bombs that splattered the rest of my car. The view was gorgeous. The patterns of the lush green leafy covering shimmied in the wind against the clear, cloudless, bright blue sky. The beautiful fall day took my breath away, and I stopped, momentarily overtaken with awe by the sight above me.

I had to laugh at the irony. I tend to be so busy looking at the excrement in my life that I forget to notice the beauty. I have to remember to keep looking up. At the beauty of this earth. At the blessings in this life. And at the One who gave all this to me to enjoy.

Just showing up

I am part owner of a crazy car called Lola. Last summer, my husband used a Sawz-all to turn the old Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight into a convertible, and my friends and I painted and glued and turned her into a crazy beach car. When a friend from church hosted a car show, we agreed to enter her, just for fun. (Lola’s kind of a show-off, anyway.)

To our great surprise, Lola received a trophy for best of show. It was a popular vote, and kids had stuffed the ballot box (or so we were told by some of the disgruntled serious car collectors who were there). My dad overheard some men at a meeting one night talking about the “car that isn’t even a real car,” and how it never should have been allowed to enter in the first place. “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful” became her motto. So this year, when the car show came around, my friends and I felt strongly that we should not enter Lola. She was created for fun, not to upset anyone, so we made other plans for that day and didn’t think twice about it.

But then a funny thing happened. Several people asked about Lola at the car show, so someone called my husband to ask him to bring the car down. He was very clear that we did not want to enter her, and was told that was fine. But when he got there, he was handed a trophy. The president of the car club felt bad about the way we’d been treated, and wanted to make it up to us. So, even without entering, Lola got her second trophy. It doesn’t seem fair, does it? We didn’t even pay an entry fee. We got something for nothing.

A similar thing happens with God. We didn’t pay the price. We don’t deserve it. Frankly, we don’t even belong in the same category. But, against all odds, he calls us. And when he does, we get blessed just for showing up.