I believe in big things: God and ministering angels, family
and FRIENDS (of the Rachel, Ross,
Chandler, Monica, Phoebe, and Joey variety), the wilderness and civic
engagement. When I thought about this assignment, though, I kept remembering
the little things; moments so small I didn’t know how I could believe in them
so enormously. I believe in the purity of the day I went running with my dog
and we found half a fragile robin’s egg and I cradled it gingerly all the way
home, trying to keep the rain off it without crushing its tiny walls in my
palm.
On study abroad in London, I wandered into a local charity
shop and found a pair of Nikes, size 8.5, from the coveted Liberty x Nike
collection, half price. I’d wanted shoes like these for months. When I wear
them now, I say, “I know God doesn’t care about shoes, but he cares about how
happy they make me.” It’s become a running nearly-joke: “I know God doesn’t
care about pie, but…”, “I know God doesn’t care about hot springs, but…” But
doesn’t he? These tiny things I believe in, like a robin’s egg in my hand and
my dog panting happily by my feet, are His. And I believe in them quite as
wholly as I believe in Him.
My desktop background is the Roald Dahl quote I shared in my
fireside chat. “And above all,” he wrote, “watch with glittering eyes the whole
world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most
unlikely places.” Glittering eyes are the kind of eyes I think my dog must have
when she sees a stick and sees what I don’t: running across the yard and
bringing it back to her people and playfully fighting for it with her cousin
and rolling in the grass after. (Listen, I just consider my dog the eighth natural
wonder of the world. Don’t all dog owners?) My cousin must have glittering eyes
when he looks at a trampoline and sees a pirate ship and an airplane and a
school bus. My roommate must look at European history with glittering eyes
because when she tells stories from her textbook, Austrian politics in the 17th
century sound swashbuckling and intriguing, dynamic and dramatic.
So I believe in glittering eyes. And I believe that God cares
about my Liberty x Nike charity shop shoes. And I definitely believe He cares about pie. He believes in robins, and
their tiny blue eggshells, and in girls going running with their dogs, and in
gently rainy days. He believes in wonder, and so I do, too, and maybe that’s
what this all comes to. My definition of wonder is synonymous with His definition
of tender mercies, of miracles. Maybe I believe so enormously in such tiny
things because I see something vast in them: cosmos and eternity and a good God
guiding it all.
