Perspective means everything.
We slowly walked the narrow boardwalk into the marshes near Bodie Lighthouse at the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We had been there before.
This time I began to tell my Lovely about the marshes in Tall Timbers, Maryland. When I was a child, I would catch crabs just a few feet away from the saltwater marshes. The distinctive smell and the high humidity next the water’s surface was something I have never forgotten. Across Herring Creek, where I would sometimes venture with a little pram sailboat, I would approach the marshes until the water became too shallow to push the little boat any closer. The same smell and the feel would meet me just like the marshes next to my childhood home a mile away. In those days, the grasses in the water were thick all over the shoreline, and sometimes baby spot and perch could be seen in the shallows just inches from marsh grasses. The mud they grew in had holes or gaps where saltwater could freely come and go with the tides. All those memories would still be in the present except for excessive pollution and fresh water from hurricanes over the last 60 years. In combination with heavy boat traffic, the marshes are substantially reduced. The creek bottoms have no grasses. The abundant life I grew up seeing is gone, probably forever.
But near Bodie Lighthouse, the marshes are protected in a variety of ways, so they remain relatively healthy. She noticed the smell right away. Some would say it stinks, but it’s also evidence of life in those muds where the grasses grow. I began to point out snake trails, bird tracks, crab tracks that went from the shallow water to the mud flats to the grasses. It was like going back 60 years and seeing the marshes of Herring Creek.
My Lovely had thought the color and smell meant no life–just death and rotting things. I changed her perspective and showed her the evidence. She only had to look with a different perspective.
So it is with tempestuous times among nations. The media multiplies the bad news to make it that much nastier and puts it in front of faces looking at tiny little screens. Then thousands of people with strange names repeat the disastrous news with stories and AI pictures and software assisted descriptions that go on and on. The perspective causes many to lose hope. Indeed, the news picture is not good.
But in the marsh grasses of little tiny huts in which unimportant people (only to an unfeeling world) live, there is life. They are only unimportant to the powers and the wealthy. In those places are moms, dads, and children that love God, walk with a knowledge of Jesus Christ, and pray for others, perhaps even you and me. Some of their friends need God. There are others in tiny places in the mountains, in river deltas, in places we might say are worthless and where oppression is long-seated and severe. But just like the marsh grasses that seem to stink and cannot possibly have life, there are precious lives that respect their Creator and love him. They will talk to their neighbors, and that is important. It’s just a matter of perspective to know they are ever so important.
So, we pray for them, make resources for them, and keep our ears open for contacts that might lead us to them, even if it’s through someone else…because they are important and have His Life and will share it with others.
