Seeing with Fresh Eyes

Last week I hosted the monthly meeting for clergy from our conference here at Coastside Lutheran. It was a hybrid meeting with half of the group attending online. The other half drove out to Half Moon Bay to attend in person from as far as San Francisco and Los Altos. Several of the pastors who attended in person had never been to Coastside Lutheran before.  After the meeting, I gave them a tour of our campus and grounds. Since we had met in the West Wing, our tour started there. One pastor commented on the new fridge which led to a conversation about the breakfast and sandwich ministries. Then we went into the Sanctuary. Everyone was wowed by the stained-glass windows which were glowing in the sunlight and several pastors commented about how beautiful the altar is which led to a conversation about how it and the other Sanctuary furnishings had been handcrafted for this congregation. From the Sanctuary, we went into the office area and one pastor even commented on the nice office furniture we have. We ended the tour out in the labyrinth and again, they marveled at the beauty of the palm trees and laughed when they spotted pumpkins “in the wild.”  They were even amazed that the pumpkins we have decorating the front of the church hadn’t been vandalized and smashed. We ended our meeting time, standing in labyrinth enjoying the warm sun on our faces and listening to the ocean breezes rustling the leaves of the palm trees.

I was glad I got to give my colleagues a tour of our campus. It gave me the opportunity to look through fresh eyes and to see how blessed we really are. It reminded me that we have so much to be thankful for.  Have you ever noticed that sometimes when we become familiar with a place or a situation, when we live there day to day and have to deal with the little issues on a regular basis, we lose sight of the bigger picture and all we see are the spots on the carpet and the cracking asphalt in the parking lot and all we focus on is the broken alarm system and the cracked toilet seat in the West Wing restroom? (and thank you, Bill Nelson, for taking care of both of these issues this week.)

For Christians, God and God’s grace is the biggest picture of all. Sometimes when we are going through hard times and challenging situations, it can be easy to forget that God is with us and God’s love surrounds us. I recently met a young man who had just discovered that God loved him and he told me that this new way of seeing himself and the world had left him disoriented but also full of gratitude.
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As we enter this holiday season, my prayer is that we will all be able to take a little time to step back from our day-to-day concerns and give thanks for the blessings that surround us.  

Blessings,
Pastor Sue