Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Shelley Schurch
Sabbath, November 24, 2024
We were walking through our neighborhood at dusk when I spied the strange sight you see in the photo above. I stopped and peered at it, trying to figure it out. Was it an unusually large light in the upstairs window? Or . . . “Look! What is that?” I pointed. “Is that the streetlight reflected in that window ahead?”
My husband explained why it couldn’t be the nearby streetlight’s reflection. I stared with furrowed brow, trying to come up with a better explanation. I could think of only one, but it didn’t seem possible . . . “Could it be the moon’s reflection?”
I turned around and gasped. Large, low, and luminous, the moon smiled back at me. I stepped closer, and took several photos, knowing I wouldn’t be able to capture the full, clear wonder of the sight, but wanting a memento of this moon. The moon I almost missed.
We would have walked home, unaware of the beauty beaming behind us, if not for noticing that unusual light ahead of us, and taking a moment to wonder and ponder.
I felt more than the moon was smiling upon us as we walked home; I suspected God was enjoying our surprise and delight.
In my Daily Photo Parable last week I wrote about Burning Bushes in our lives, those times when God definitely gets our attention, and sometimes upends our lives. This week it’s Moon Moments! But that’s just the jumping off point; I’m extending my description to call these our Behind My Back Blessings.
When we talk about someone doing something behind our backs it usually has a negative connotation – someone is being sneaky or deceitful and trying to harm us in some way. That’s not what we’re talking about here, because we’ve added the word “Blessings.”
Behind My Back Blessings could still include someone doing something in a secretive way, but with the intent of helping rather than harming. We have sometimes been asked to hand someone in need an envelope, so the givers could be “anonymous angels.”
But what I’m mostly thinking about are the blessings I can best see when I stop, turn around, and look back in my life – to yesterday, last week, last year, or a much longer look back. Every Thanksgiving season I like to chant the reminder: “If we pause to think, we have cause to thank.”
As we step out into this brand-new week, filled with old-time traditions, may you carve out time to look back, then look up, and once again give God your heart – full of thankfulness for His goodness, His grace, His mercy, His love.