Eyes in the Moonlight

Have you ever looked at a certain period in your life, and wondered how God could use something so meaningless for good?

The other day, I got on the elevator to go to the 6th floor, only to find that it was already heading the opposite direction-to the basement.  The person responsible for sending it this way was a maintenance man dressed in khaki, with a rolling cart of supplies.

We exchanged pleasantries. I found his supply belt striking. (Forgive me if there’s a more appropriate name.)  In leather pouches around his waist, he carried a long, slim flashlight and a pouch that looked the size of a Leatherman (now check out my vocabulary). The flashlight made me think of dark crawl spaces vibrating with spiders. In his back right pants pocket, a pair of work gloves stuck out in a haphazard fashion as if they had been stuffed in at the end of a long struggle with a drain pipe.

I noted particularly that the leather holsters that held the tools in place were worn, with streaks of brown breaking through the black. Everything about him, from the loaded belt to the last crash and rattle of the cart as he exited into the basement, indicated that this was a man you would want to have on call for any household catastrophe.  (And I didn’t even ask for his number–so much for my dishwasher.)

By contrast, I think of myself, the other day, after I managed to tighten the track on my treadmill without any explosions.

“Woo-hoo! I’m a mechanic!” I texted my friend.

I could send text messages around the world, and there’s still not a reasonable human being on the planet in need of maintenance work who would choose me over the khaki-clad man on the elevator.

That man knows what he’s doing, because he has the tools and experience he needs. Without him and his partners, the hospital, with its elevators and hundreds of toilets and sinks and lights and switches, would unquestionably fall apart.

My students used to get so tired of algebra and spelling words and…well, school.

“I’ll never use this stuff,” was the most common complaint.

There’s just one problem with their logic: they didn’t know the future.

I read them a piece from Our Mutual Friend, and I have to share it with you.

It startled her, for it was like a sound of heavy blows. She stood still and listened. It sickened her, for blows fell heavily and cruelly on the quiet of the night. As she listened, undecided, all was silent. As she yet listened, she heard a faint groan, and a fall into the river.

To keep from quoting the whole book, let me explain: she, was Lizzie, raised by a criminal father in London, who forced Lizzie to go boating with him on the Thames River at night to fish for dead bodies.  They would recover the bodies, then steal clothes, watches, jewelry, or wallets to make a profit. Because of her awful past, she declined the man in love with her.  They had just parted ways on this night -perhaps forever- when (unknown to her that it was he) the man she was in love with was attacked and thrown in the river.

Her old bold life and habit instantly inspired her. Without vain waste of breath in crying for help where there were none to hear, she ran towards the spot from which the sounds had come.  At length, she reached a part of the green bank, where there lay some broken splintered pieces of wood and some torn fragments of clothes.  Stooping, she saw that the grass was bloody. Following the current with her eyes, she saw a bloody face turned up towards the moon and drifting away.

Now, merciful Heaven be thanked for that old time, and grant, O Blessed Lord, that through thy wonderful workings it may turn to good at last! To whomsoever the drifting face belongs, be it man’s or woman’s, help my humble hands, Lord God, to raise it from death and restore it to some one to whom it must be dear!

…not for a moment did the prayer check her. She was away before it welled up in her mind, away, swift and true, yet steady above all–for without steadiness it could never be done–to the landing place under the willow-tree, where she also had seen the boat lying moored among the stakes.

A sure touch of her old practiced hand, a sure step of her old practiced foot, a sure light balance of her body, and she was in the boat…it shot out into the moonlight, and she was rowing down the stream as never other woman rowed on English water…looking as the boat drove everywhere, everywhere, for the floating face.

She merely kept the boat before the stream now, and rested on her oars, knowing well that if the face were not soon visible, it had gone down, and she would overshoot it. An untrained sight would never have seen by the moonlight what she saw at the length of a few strokes astern.  She saw the drowning figure rise to the surface, slightly struggle, and as if by instinct turn over on its back to float.

Firm of look and firm of purpose, she intently watched its coming on, until it was very near; then with a touch unshipped her sculls, and crept aft in the boat, between kneeling and crouching. Once, she let the body evade her, not being sure of her grasp. Twice, and she had seized it by its bloody hair.

She sees that he is the man she loves, and “the river and its shores rang to the terrible cry she uttered.”

Now, merciful Heaven be thanked for that old time, enabling me, without a wasted moment, to have got the boat afloat again, and to row back against the stream!

It’s just a story.  But it captures so well the idea of the worst moments of our lives being redeemed.

“I’ll never use this stuff!” I wail to God sometimes, after a trying experience, perhaps even, like Lizzie, because of someone’s sin!

But there’s just one problem with my logic: I don’t know the future.

Even if pieces of our lives look completely meaningless at times, I believe that when we give our lives to God for His glory, there is nothing beyond His reach.  There are no years, no effort, no experiences, that He cannot turn around for good.

When God needs someone in a crawl space, he finds someone with a flashlight. When God needs someone to communicate or calculate, he finds someone who can spell and do math. When he needs someone to rescue a floating body, he finds someone who knows how to row a boat, someone whose eyes can see in the moonlight.

God is better than Charles Dickens at saving the plot. When he needed someone to be where you are in life, he found you.