Walking Trees

...I see people; they look like trees walking around.  Mark 8:24  (NIV)

Note:  This post was written 3/5/10 but I was too tired to post it on time so it reads a day late.

Ashley went home today!  Exactly two months from the day that a horrible accident nearly claimed her life...Ashley went home! 

This has been an amazing journey.  Of course I'm not callous enough to have wished it on her - oh so far from that.  But through all the pain and torment this precious little girl has suffered...much, much good has come.  Not only for me but for scores of people I don't even know. 

Before the accident I believed myself to have begun some kind of spiritual journey, and indeed I had.  But something much more than that has come from this.  From whining about faith, to catching a glimpse of faith and on to a hunger and intense desire for faith - all in a few short weeks.  I have had the honor to be around several people with a genuine faith, the kind of faith I could emulate - as a good dog.  I have learned much, and been blessed in a way that I not only don't deserve - but don't even understand.

Now for some really bad exegesis.  I caught a glimpse of what faith is.  I saw it, I felt it.  But now I feel like the blind man in Bethsaida.  I have had my eyes opened, and I saw something over there, I can tell it's faith, but my sight isn't quite there yet...it looks fuzzy, it looks like trees walking around.  My guess is that it's not because Jesus couldn't do the job all at once...it's more likely that the fuzziness of my faith is, well - my fault.  Despite what has happened.  Despite the fact that my once nearly dead daughter today was sitting on the sofa in her home with her husband.  In spite of the fact that major changes and healing in families and relationships has begun in earnest.  Even though prayers have been answered in powerful ways...

I have this blurry, out-of-focus faith.  But how sweet to see something!  Someone!  I don't think Jesus gave me a glimpse to tease me, he'll finish the job.  Now if I can just stay right here, scrunching my face and squinting my eyes until...