Microcosm

This past weekend, the weather changed, and fall moved in. Was it possible that I was there in the precise moment it happened?

I was waiting in the car while the guys ran in to get a few things in the store. It was warm and sunny, and the windows were down. The clouds against the blue sky were amazing, and I was, of course, taking pictures.

The sky was changing while I waited, and I loved the look of it!

I took a moment to look down at my phone, and heard rapid, soft, mystery plops. Alarm bells went off in my head, but not to worry, the “plops” were only drops of rain landing on the driver’s seat. (Why do I worry first, and wonder later?)

I rolled up the window, but that made it harder to see the sunset. The orange-red light from the sun changed the color of the clouds while the wind blew them around. The sky itself was changing from bright blue to deep bluish-purple, and to the northeast, the sky was pink.

As you know, I love the sunrise and sunset (and storms!), so I was trying to get pictures of the scene through the windows, but it wasn’t working. Either the window was fogging up, or the drops were in the way.

Then I noticed the drops. I got closer, and saw the scene from outside was clearly reflected (upside down) in each drop. But not all the little scenes were the same. The picture inside each drop was affected by where it was, and by its own shape.

Each little drop “experienced” the same thing in a slightly different way, then reflected it according to its own ability. The roundness of some made me think of wholeness.

Some of the drops were irregular because of how they traveled down the window. Some were being torn apart. Some were almost too tiny to perceive. But each was a mirror, in reverse. Because I was trying so hard to see the big picture through the blur, I almost missed all the tiny scenes.

I thought of the way each person at the scene of an event will tell “their story,” which is their own perspective of what happened. Each person’s story is slightly different, because we each notice things we expect to see, or things we understand. Because people have different experiences behind them, each one perceives things a little bit differently.

Another reason those stories are different from each other is because each person is influenced by the way their experiences have shaped them. Some folks struggle with remembered pain or a cherished past, and that pulls at their mind the same way gravity pulls at a drop on the window, skewing it from the naturally-round shape: Part of them is clinging to a different reality than the one in which they are in right now.

When life strikes, what helps us “stay in shape” is the strength of our boundaries. A rain drop’s ability to stay round depends on its “cohesion,” or the way it sticks to itself, as God commanded in the beginning. Water always has surface tension, and that tension, (which allows a water bug to walk over the water instead of sinking) is also present on the surface of a water droplet.

“Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place,and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.” (Genesis 1:9)

Our boundaries help us the way a strong wall helps a fortified city, or the way the wall of a cell protects its contents. Our boundaries are made of our beliefs, our habits, our relationships, our location, etc. If those things are working for us, those boundaries protect us from bad things while allowing good things to come into our lives.

Our control over our boundaries is not complete. Some things in our lives cannot be changed, but we can influence most things, and it’s a good idea to step back and review the boundaries that are in place around us. As we grow and change, our boundaries need to change as well.

When I began photographing the sunset-storm, I was frustrated because the drops got in the way. But I realized that the drops told me a lot about the sunset that I couldn’t get with a straightforward picture. Each one was a microcosm of the sunset: What a beautiful scene was displayed in each one!

Each person is a microcosm, a miniature universe, an echo of what is in the larger world. For we are each made in the image and likeness of our Father, though we may look nothing like each other. Because God made us, and God made this world we live in, there is always something similar that we can agree upon, an ideal we each long for, or a need with which we sympathize. Each person is filled with thoughts, ideas and inspirations that they may not share, but that add depth and intrigue to all of our lives when we live alongside each other. But we hide from each other, just as the Father hides from us.

Did you know He hides and wants to be sought?

Truly You are God, who hide Yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior! (Isaiah 45:15)

Are you curious about God? I am, and that curiosity will never be satisfied, for God is bigger and more amazing than we can ever imagine or perceive. But seek Him, and He will reveal parts of Himself to you, as you are able to receive it.

Are you curious about your family, your friend or your neighbors? Do you wonder, as I do, what mysteries might be solved if only we understood what others experience and learn?

You, yourself, have valuable input, but unfortunately, we get used to hearing that our opinion doesn’t matter. But it does matter to God, and who are we compared to Him?

“What is man that thou are mindful of him? Or the son of man, that thou visitest Him?” (Psalm 8:4)

And yet He watches us and thinks of us! Psalm 139 goes over it in detail, explaining how God planned our existence, formed us, and knows what we are going to say before we say it! “How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!” Psalm 139:17

When you love someone, you love to hear their thoughts and ideas. And who knows: Maybe if we knew more of someone else’s thoughts, we might learn to love them better?

Enjoy this beautiful, God-given day, and I hope you explore a little more today. Look up, look away; I pray you don’t miss your blessings! Much love to you!

“Open up, O heavens, and pour out your righteousness. Let the earth open wide so salvation and righteousness can sprout up together. I, the LORD, created them. (Isaiah 45:8 NLT)