[Faith-talk] Daily Thought for Tuesday, August 6, 2013

[Paul]

Well, as this is being written here in eastern North America, it's midafternoon.  Don't know what time of day it is in your part of the world, but I hope and pray that things are going well for you.

Pam Bostwick lives in Utah, and today she graces our screen readers and Braille displays with her insightful article entitled "A Gift of Love," rendered as follows:

"Mom, come chase butterflies with me," my daughter called as the screen door banged behind her.

I groaned and picked up another potato.  "I'd love to, Robin, if I ever get this done."

"Then you'll have something else to do," she complained.

I paused, peeler in midair.  Potatoes would wait but time with my daughter wouldn't always be there.

"You're right." I smiled.  "It's too nice outside to stay in a stuffy house.  Let's go."

Robin hesitated.  "Mom, aren't butterflies too small for you to see?"

Robin had always been unusually perceptive about my near blindness.  "It'll be okay." I patted her shoulder.  "I can look at one through your eyes."

Out in the warm sunshine, it didn't take Robin long to find a monarch butterfly we could follow.  "It's real colorful, Mom, with brown and yellow wings.  I wish you could see it."

"I'm afraid your butterfly moves too fast for that," I chuckled.  "I have an idea, though.  You tell me when it is by the big things I can see.  Then at least I'll know where it's at."

The two of us chased the butterfly around the yard, and I felt like a kid again.  The soft grass tickled my hot toes, and the slight breeze refreshed the humid day.  Meanwhile, Robin explained, "The butterfly is by a tree and going toward the sky.  Now it's near the hedge but is headed for the garbage cans."

Soon Robin told me, "I've lost it."

I suggested we take a rest, so we flopped down under our old sycamore tree.  After a minute Robin said, "Maybe I can think of a way for you to see a butterfly."

I squeezed her hand.  "I'd love to watch one, Robin." I shrugged.  "But I don't know how I can."

"A butterfly is one of God's prettiest creations," Robin reflected.  "We'll just have to find a way for you to look at one.  I'll be back."

She scurried away, and I marveled at her simple faith.  While I waited for her, I looked around at the majestic purple mountains, the green in the tree and the yellow ball of sun.  Even though I missed most of the details in my surroundings, I was grateful.  What if my world remained in total darkness?

I must have dozed because the next sound I heard was Robin's eager voice as she shook me awake.  "Mom, I have something to show you."

She thrust a bottle into my hands.  I moved it next to my face and squinted until my eyes focused on a brown and yellow something that darted inside the jar.

"A butterfly!" My voice was filled with the awe I felt.

"I captured it just for you."

"It's beautiful." My throat tightened, and I could hardly go on.  "It's so close.  I can watch it with my own eyes while it spreads its tiny wings." I held the bottle away and hugged her.  "Thank you, Robin.  Thank you, God," I whispered.

"You can keep it," Robin offered.

"I'd like to Honey, except no one, especially a butterfly, wants to be cooped up in a bottle."

"Oh, Mom! If you let it go, you won't be able to see it anymore."

"No, but I'll always remember."

Once more I peered at what I could glimpse of the butterfly's tiny wings.  For a trembling moment my eyes lingered.  I was not quite ready to let this moment of seeing go.  I longed to engrave its colors in my mind.  I peered at it until my eyes blurred.  Then I gave the jar back to Robin.  I had viewed a butterfly.  It was enough.

"Mom, do you ever feel like you're in a bottle?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if I was a butterfly in a bottle, I don't think I'd see much around me.  That must be how it is for you."

I was touched by her insight.  "Yes, I guess that's how it is unless I have someone like you to show me things like butterflies."

"I'll go dig up a worm for you to look at."

"Oh, no," I laughed as I turned up my nose.  "I think we can pass on that one."

We walked back to the house embracing a new kind of closeness.  Someday, when Robin soars away to find her new life, she and I will have forgotten that the potatoes were left unpeeled.  Yet, we will treasure the memory of our butterfly and afternoon spent together.

Wow, but what a precious story between a mother and her daughter.  This reminds me of a little six-year-old girl named Carly Butterworth who lives maybe five or six houses down the block from me.  Sometimes she sees me outside and says a little girl "Hi." One time, she led me into her parents' flower garden and in her childish way began describing the flowers that she could see.  Sometime later I learned that, as a much younger child, she had been abused quite severely by an older man, and it surprised Mrs. Butterworth that she would take to me like she did.  I don't know if that family are Christians or not, but I'm convinced that somehow the Lord put it into this little girl's heart that I wouldn't do what that other man did, and the results were history.  So, in a sense, I can grasp what Mrs. Bostwick felt as Robin so insightfully spoke to her.

And now may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, in these last days in which we live.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul