London appears to be a place of mysteries and unexplained wonders. You get up in the morning, try and make yourself look human, grab a coffee and rush out the door. Well it was such a morning last week. I got out the door, and was walking down the street, minding my own business. Suddenly I am stopped in my tracks at seeing a curious sight.
A shoe.
A lady’s shoe to be more specific. It just lay there on the side-walk, as if it belonged there. It wasn’t old or torn or thrown away. It hadn’t been tossed away. It just lay there neatly, without its other half. And as I passed it my mind began to wonder. How had that shoe come to be there? Was it neatly placed there by some eccentric in order to rouse precisely such speculations? Do we have a Cinderella in our midst? Did the owner just disappear on her way to buy cigarettes on evening? Was there something fishy on my coffee this morning?
Mysterious. Unexplained.
Then, as I continued down the same street, I walked by a small shop, out of which walks an old lady. She has just bought the morning newspaper from the store and brushes past me. But hold on! What is she wearing? A short, pink night-dress with frills at the end. We’re talking grandma, here. Wrinkles and all. And as thought that were not enough, she also wore festive, formal heels. Again the questions came running. Had she misunderstood the latest fashion magazine? Was she sleep-walking?
And as I continued on my journey I began to think about all the other random, unexplained things which I had seen. What was with the telephone hanging from that tree in the park? Did someone receive some bad news?
And why are bus passes carried in IKEA holders? Why is it when you’re late for work you seem to hit every red light on the way? Is there a guy in a booth somewhere with a magic button who’s out to get you?
Why do some men feel the need to wear those pointy shoes to the office that makes them look like witches? Was the Mayor of London hit by lightning and then dunked in peroxide?
Do people who sit upstairs on double-decker buses really have more fun?
Why does that guy always fill the baby carriage with beer bottles. Where does he put the baby? In the fridge?
And why DID the chicken cross the road??
Ok. I’ll stop there. But you get the point. Life is full of the unexplained and the mysterious, loose ends and unanswered questions. Some of them can remain a mystery and we don’t mind too much if the old lady likes pink. Some of them, on the other hand, get to us. Ever had one of those questions on your mind?
We ask “why me?” or “why now?”. “Why did God let me go through it?” “Who am I meant to marry?” “How would that situation have gone differently if…”
Questions, questions and sometimes few answers…
A lot of questions.
And then I sometimes treat God like a Jeopardy game. I look at the answers on the board of “common reasons” and I guess the question.
.
God: It wasn’t meant to be.
Me: Erm… why did we break up?
.
God: Pray more
Me: Why I didn’t get that job?
.
God: Devil’s work
Me: Why is there so much pain in the world?
It’s a ridiculous game, really. Because what usually happens is that He will leave questions unanswered, which I then will try and cram into a box of reasons and systematic theology. Its like the unexplained in my life goes into some miscellaneous shelf in my mind and I just throw cliche comments at it:
“That’s life”
“Wasn’t meant to be.”
“Something better will come along.”
“Chin up- tomorrow’s another day”
“The Devil got in the way.”
OH PLEASE! That’s like saying that there is no good or intelligent reason for my answers just because I cannot think of them!
Point is? I believe in a God with a plan and a purpose. It doesn’t mean that everything that happens in my life was his PURPOSE. But it also doesn’t give me any right to make him out to be a God who uses cliches to answer my pains or catch-phrases to explain my doubts away. He is able to stand up for himself a LOT better than that.
But I also realize that there are questions I will not have an answer to anywhere in the near future. And you know what? The battle, in this case, is to try and fight towards acceptance; not that life is unfair sometimes, but that we don’t always get the answers the way we want them. (Although, I must admit, I fail miserably at this a lot of the time.)
Whether its why the chicken crossed the road or why, after staring after the lady in the pink dress, I walked into a lamp-post, or why certain things happen in life, I am comforted. I am comforted by the fact that he lets me ASK questions, he doesn’t try to hide behind excuses. And at the same time He really is in control. He doesn’t ask us to be emotionless monks who passively watch the world pass by without a reaction or a questioning thought. But I really do think He really will have answers one day.
And in the meanwhile He is my answer. I may not know the answers, but I know Him. He will love us through and past everything else.
