Lost In Wonder

Lost in Wonder

I was never a fan of the television series Lost. As near as I could tell without ever having watched an entire episode, the show followed the survivors of a plane crash on an unknown island—a place that was mysterious and a little scary, and where generally speaking, things were not what they seemed. Call me crazy, but their invented reality sounds an awful lot like mine.

Granted, I didn’t crash here. I’m more of a natural-born citizen whose entrance into her “lost” world was far less traumatic. Because this is the only place I’ve ever known, I don’t always comprehend its strangeness. I assume that I understand everything I see, because I’ve seen it so often and for so long. I imagine that life here is predictable and routine and ordinary. But it is not. Not at all.

Just yesterday I watched half a season’s yellow leaves fall in one golden afternoon on my street. They descended in a long, slow, sustained flurry—as if God took a deep breath and sighed just above my front yard. And I was lost. In wonder. I’ve lived on this planet every day of my life and never witnessed such a moment before. Not even once. How often do I miss God’s presence and the wonders he brings, simply because I’m distracted or preoccupied?

On Sunday, our hymn of the week was “Be Thou My Vision,” sung beginning to end in morning worship by the gathered congregation I’ve come to love. And although I’ve heard the melody hundreds of times, it never sounded so achingly lovely as it did that day:

Be Thou my Breastplate, my sword for the fight;

Be Thou my armor, and be Thou my might;

Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tower:

Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

It was exquisite. And I was lost.

You haven’t seen it all friend, and neither have I. This world has ample surprises in store because the one who created and sustains it is ever full of them. And I’ll be watching. Because you just never know. A girl could learn to love being lost.

I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.

Ephesians 1:18