In Color

The world has gone gray.

The sun is on holiday. It checks in occasionally, like a friend texting a vacation photo, then returns to its resort behind the clouds.

Gray clouds. The kind that usually bring snow. But not this time. A few flakes have skittered across the yard in the last 10 days, but not enough to render the cold, washed-out days beautiful. The forecasts called for snow, but an icy mist took its place, settling over the nearby fields like dew. Settling into my bones.

Have I gone gray?

I see vaccine selfies posted on Facebook, but instead of being happy for those who now have a degree of protection from COVID-19, I grumble. I hear “Gimme mine!” in my head, in the voice of a six-year-old waiting for a Slurpee.

Lord, have mercy.

I went online today to add my name to a state-run registry for vaccinations. It gives little away to share that my vaccine group consists of residents between the ages of 16 and 64. I expect I will wind up getting my shots alongside an 18-year-old high school wrestler, hopefully before the end of 2021.

My priority would be higher if I had answered “Yes,” to questions concerning my health or living arrangements. But I answered “No,” to everything—I have a home, shared only with Mr. Pettit, and no disorders (beyond the rag pile in the corner of my brain).

I closed my laptop, resigned to my lowly status.

Then truth slammed into me. God might not have yelled, “Don’t be an idiot!” into my ear, but I sensed Him rolling His eyes.

I have a warm home offering protection from the cold. I have no chronic conditions. I am not facing rounds of radiation and chemotherapy, which a fellow church member is confronting as I write. I am not tending to the sick or caring for the aged.

That list doesn’t even scratch the surface of my blessings, which extend far beyond the Commonwealth’s concerns.

The sun has not gone on holiday. It rises and sets, rises and sets, day after day after day. My perception does not alter its path.

I am easily distracted. But my focus, whether on the good thing I don’t have or the bad thing I do, doesn’t change reality.

God is good. Jesus loves me. I am forgiven.

I feel it now, taking shape in my heart.

The arc of a rainbow.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:17 (NIV)