My heart aches for others to know that special is special, in it’s most pure and true form.

One result of my journey has been a redefinition of the word Special. It reminds me of a passage from Paul’s Letter to Titus, which says that to the pure, all things are pure.  The word Special, in the most pure form, means something extraordinary and to be highly valued.  The rest of the verse says “…but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure.  Both their mind and conscience are defiled.”  I can admit that the meaning of special had been tainted in my own mind.  Since I was young I knew that special, as referring to individuals who were different, really meant “less than”.  Not something highly valued nor extraordinary, but something oddball and abnormal.  My own thoughts had been defiled and were working against me to shut out the truth of God and replace it with the perspective of society.  I was unbelieving and therefore my mind and conscience were unavailable to received truth and purity.  I realize now that Nicolas is  special. Very special.  He is a unique, extraordinary gift.

I’m still on a journey. I constantly encounter new bits and pieces of wisdom which augment my perspective along the way.  For example, I’ve just started the Beth Moore study on the book of James, and today I came across this explication of the word “perfect”.  I immediately flashed back to that day of my indignant protest (which you read in my previous post called Surrender) “I just want Nicolas to be perfect”.  In this Beth Moore study she is unpacking in James this verse: “Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing”.   She points out for her readers that the Greek word for “perfect” (teleios) describes “that which has achieved or reached its goal, objective, purpose…”  Does that remind you of the article I shared in my “Awkward” post about the little girl named Gaby? Wasn’t she so perfect based on the Greek definition used by James?  I gotta say here that I find it overwhelmingly beautiful that all these pieces swirl together and blend into a completely new vision.

*Sorry if I keep referring to different of my blog posts that you may have not read – but this is the part where it all starts to fall together like puzzle pieces, or maybe more like a harmonic symphony *

A while back a dear friend posted the lyrics to an old hymn on social media.  I remember singing this when I was a little girl, but never tied it into perspective.  The chorus says:   “turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face.  And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”  I realized when I read those lyrics, that the perspective shift I had been working on incrementally was more than a shift in how I perceived any circumstance or situation, but actually a complete shift of focus. I had found that to correctly filter any situation, I need to look away from the circumstance and look upon something else entirely:  Jesus.  When your mind’s eye switches its focus to Christ, it cannot see any situation in a bad light.  Mind. Blown! (okay maybe not yours, but when I became aware of this, it changed literally everything for me!)

If you’ve been reading all my blog posts, then I think we can now get personal….what about you? What area of your life is challenging you?  What are you seeing with your own natural eyes, and filtering through your emotions and your limited perspective.  Is there something that, every time you measure, it comes up woefully short and insufficient? Can I challenge you to try God’s perspective? Can you trust the maker of the universe enough to believe that He can work that thing out for your good? Can you catch even a glimmer of good there somewhere, either now or lurking in the future if you were to let go of your perspective and shift your own defiled thinking for His pure reality?  If you do, I can promise it’s true that “…the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His Glory and Grace.” And that is what I am praying for now, just for you.