A Matter of Perspective

I’m not going to lie—I love eating Chinese food—well, almost any Asian dish delights my palate.

If you have ever eaten at an Asian restaurant then you are aware that typically you will receive a “fortune” cookie at the end of the meal. My granddaughter likes to mix them up behind her back and then make me choose which hand I want the fortune from. I almost always pick the left hand.

Two weeks ago when we were getting our fortune cookies and I had chosen the left hand’s cookie, I said, “Okay. Whatever this fortune says, that is my destiny.”

I eagerly opened the cookie. To our surprise, however, there was no fortune inside. There was no fortune anyway.

What? No destiny?

I whined a little about not getting a fortune and then forgot about it until we went to lunch on Sunday at an area Chinese restaurant.

I thought to myself, “Well, I better get a fortune this time or I am going to complain to the management!”

Out loud I said, “I sure hope I get a fortune this time.”

My granddaughter agreed that I should definitely get one this time.

When I opened my cookie, there was my fortune nestled like a chick in an egg.

I picked it out of the now broken cookie and gingerly opened it to see what my fortune was to be.

It said, “Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings while the dawn is still dark.”

Those of you who know me know that my faith is very important to me. Receiving this fortune was like a dark veil being removed. It exactly sums up faith.

I had talked a little about faith last week and answered prayers but WOW! This really cemented my belief into something so concrete that I could “feel” my faith.

Faith is a hard thing, but I think we human beings make it much harder than it has to be. Let me explain.

There are so many things that we do on a daily basis that require faith.

• Sitting on a chair and believing it will support us takes a form of faith.

• Getting into a car and turning the key (or pushing a button) and believing the car will start sometimes takes a lot of faith!

• Going to bed at night and falling to sleep believing that in the morning we will wake up.

All those things are acts that we do without much or any thought. We just do them.

There are harder things to have faith in, like believing that God has our best interest in mind when we offer up a prayer. I like to believe that I know what is “best” for me. However, that isn’t always the case.

Sometimes I find that it is better to just follow the somewhat trite but true, “Let go and let God.”

I have a banner that hangs in my bedroom. It says something very similar, “Give it to God and go to bed!”

I think if we all practiced that a little more we might have an easier time with faith.

I’m going to eat at a Chinese restaurant tonight (Tuesday, December 19). Tomorrow I have my gallbladder taken out. I wanted to enjoy one of my favorite foods before that surgery as I might not be able to eat some of my favorite spicier dishes afterwards.

But I am keeping the faith that I will still be able to eat the foods I like the best!