Seeing Beyond Me

Finding Dory made me feel, deeply. Triumph, loss, joy, love. And discomfort.




Ok, not the whole time. Just some of the time. I won't spoil the movie for all the poor unfortunates who haven't seen it yet, but my GOODNESS. She would get so close to finding her parents, and SLAM. Another obstacle! Another stinking obstacle! I assume the creators wanted to make Dory seem even that much more amazing because when the chips were way down on the ocean floor, and all seemed hopeless even to me ("Remember, Lauren. It's a movie. It's a Disney movie for crying out loud. It will work out. It will. But HOW?") Dory never gave up hope. Yeah, it worked.




That wasn't the uncomfortable thing for me though. Well not the only uncomfortable thing.




One of the characters is near sighted. Like me. And when the picture entered her point of view and all was fuzzy and Dory was a "little blue blob" a part of me felt a hint of panic. I could be the only one of thousands of near sighted people who felt that way, but it is a bit unnerving to be confronted with a very real handicap that you have "corrected" in a moment when you least expect it. Now was it
funny? Yes. Did it give me a good way to explain my own limitations to my family? You bet. So bravo Disney/Pixar. You brought forth the really unnerving question:




Is the near-sightedness limited to my physical body?




Um, no.




It creeps deep into my consciousness.




"No one cares what you think."
"You have nothing new to say."
"You don't know what you are talking about."
"Who wants to read one person's opinion?"
"You should be spending your time on something else."
"You are wasting people's time."
"Don't bother investing the time when you will probably just fail anyway."




Gross. It makes me cry just typing those things out loud.




Compound on that the guilty feeling that the problem is my lack of faith, and I am broken.




I have no tidy answer.




I have only the faint echo in this canyon that sounds:


Give thanks in all circumstances.


If faith required seeing, it wouldn't be faith.


If faith required a "feeling" it wouldn't be faith.


Faith is a verb. Faith is trust.


Faith is action even when you don't feel what you think you should feel.


Faith is acting on what you know is right even when it is plain old scary.


Don't underestimate what God can do. Don't sell Him short.


Just take one more step.




Maybe you aren't near-sighted. Maybe you see this world and God's plan 20-20.


Or maybe you see the obstacles and they are so much nearer and clearer than all the fuzziness in the future and you just want to circle your tank in safety.




I really don't think you were made for captivity. None of us were. We are free in Christ and if the Son sets us free we are truly free.




And we can take our eyes off ourselves and focus them on the Savior. It takes practice and I am just relearning. Thank God He is patient and straight-up relentless.




God grant us the courage to trust in You, make the next move, and just keep swimming.