Sunday mornings are an odd time at our home. We are up at a later time than we are the rest of the week, yet we still have the mad rush to get ready and be on time for church. To avoid the rush, I try to be up, showered, shaved, etc. before my wife and three teenaged daughters are in need of the facilities. That sometimes leaves me time to catch some of the morning news. Sometimes, this is a good thing, sometimes not, but it is part of my Sunday morning. A couple of Sunday’s ago, I was having a particularly stressful morning due to many different things that are common to most of us, feeling a little bit of frustration and self-pity at the situation I was finding myself in. Then, a very simple comment from one of the stories on the CBS Sunday Morning program reminded me of something very important.
The full story is at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/22/sunday/main5033650.shtml . The story is titled “Healing the Most Deeply Scarred”. It details a program helping men who have been badly disfigured in the War on Terror. The stories were heart-wrenching, but the exchange between the reporter, David Martin, and Octavio Sanchez, who had been disfigured when his Humvee was destroyed in Iraq, reminded me of a very important basic of the faith. Octavio Sanchez’s nose had been totally destroyed. Yet, in this, he still sees God. The exchange that spoke to me was the following:
“Thats not the nose that God gave you?” Martin said.
“Its not. Its not the nose that God gave me. Its the second nose God gave me.”
Octavio Sanchez realizes and articulates something that I frequently need to be reminded of. Whatever I am dealing with, whatever I am facing, whatever is provided to me, whatever is happening, God has given it to me, and I need to praise Him.
Romans 5:4, James 1:2, Romans 8:28, and many other Scriptures remind us of these things, but we still need to see it sometimes in somebody else, that faith that reminds us to remember Who our King is.