Two blue eyes. One red shopping cart. A tiny pair of grey leggings. One mouth agape in unaffected adorableness. And two random shoes that aren’t even trying. Aren’t even pretending to match.
There’s something perfect about this picture, Kaylee. Perfect because it’s you. But also, undeniably, perfect because it’s different.
In the wilderness, God’s people rebelled against Moses with this claim, “You have gone too far! The whole community of Israel has been set apart by the Lord, and he is with all of us. What right do you have to act as though you are greater than the rest of the Lord’s people?” (Numbers 16.3)
They didn’t want to recognize anyone could be different.
It was a lot like a few chapters before.
While they were at Hazeroth, Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses because he had married a Cushite woman. They said, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Hasn’t he spoken through us, too?” But the Lord heard them. (Numbers 12.1-2)
This does not sound like one of those times you want God to hear you. Now, Miriam and Aaron repented and God saved them from their punishment, something that did not happen to Korah and the leaders of his rebellion (always repent!), but there’s a theme here.
We should respect authority. God loves a heart that’s willing to submit and not grumble against its leaders. God desires that obedience. But maybe, along with that, God’s saying it’s okay to be different. Okay to have different parts in his body. Okay to accept our place, because behind it, in many ways we are really accepting who we are.
I think a lot of people who complain about leaders or who think they’re not being given what’s owed to them, what they deserve, are really pretty miserable inside. They haven’t accepted their place in God’s family or in the world because they’re not really ready to accept themselves.
They look down at their feet and see two mismatched shoes. Two blue eyes and a grey legging out of place. They don’t see perfect.
And perfectly prepared for it.
When I hold you, Kaylee, I can’t get over how amazing you are. There’s something wildly intoxicating about you, something that makes me want to snatch you up from wherever you are, wobbling across the floor, or out of Mommy’s arms (where you usually are). I have to have you. There’s something deep within your core that exudes through your every pore that I absolutely adore. You are breathtaking, enchanting. You are wholly different from me and anything I’ve ever known.
And that’s perfect.
In our culture, we try so hard to be the same. And to have equal rights in pursuing our absolutely colorless same-ity.
Maybe we’re different. Maybe we’re all called to different places, all fitting different parts in one body. Some with matched and others with mismatched shoes, callings, stories.
But all absolutely essential, even perfect, in that place.
It kind of flies in the face of the desire for women to be just like men in our culture today, and for the congregant to have every bit the same say as the pastor.
Maybe we’re all a little too centered on our sameness and not willing to embrace our other shoe.
There’s something about you that’s different, Kaylee, and that’s just the way it should be.
The other day, you and your brother were with Mom at the park. She told you to “Look at Mommy and smile” and this happened –>.
It was hilariously wrong. You two adorable mismatched shoes staring off after some stranger or whatever may have been over your shoulder INSTEAD of the Mommy in front of you, capturing it all with the camera that was supposed to have taken a perfect picture of a normal happy moment.
I imagine one of you glanced behind first, a little confused, maybe you, maybe your brother, and then the other followed along unknowingly in your adorably cute bliss-gnorance.
Those are the moments that are perfectly out of place. Like we are. And where in that moment we realize we are perfectly where we should be.
This goes with the March 11 reading of the One Year Bible.