Busted Lips and Loose Teeth

 

“Oh no!”  Elise shrieked, sounding like a girl who has just discovered that her entire family was swallowed by a great white shark.

“What’s the matter?”  Her mother asked her.  Elaine has experienced enough of these wails of disaster not to get too bent out of shape over them.

“I fell down roller skating,” Elise said between sobs.  “And I hit my mouth and now it’s bleeding!”

There’s nothing like the sight of blood to strike fear in the heart of six-year-old girls (and plenty of older people as well).  Elise was rapidly losing blood and her parents were standing around chatting like they were at a fellowship evening at church.

“Let me look at it,” Elaine said.  “I’m sure you just scraped up your lip…”

“It needs a Band Aid!  It needs a Band Aid!”  Elise said. 

“We can’t put a Band Aid on your lip,” Elaine said.  “It wouldn’t stick.”  She looked at Elise’s mouth.  “It isn’t your lip at all,” she pronounced.  “You must have had a lose tooth and it just came out.  Look, here it is on your dress.”

Just that quickly, the script flipped.  “I’m SO lucky!”  Elise said, suddenly all smiles.  “I wanted to lose that tooth and that fall helped it come out.  It didn’t even hurt a bit!”

I listened to this interchange and found it amusing.  Elise gets a small sum of money in exchange for her teeth, while she gets no payment for busted lips, hence the difference in response between the two.

Optimists look at the silver lining.  Pessimists see the dark clouds.  Realists simply hope the clouds bring needed rain and not disastrous hail.

Christians are not commanded to look at silver linings or to de-emphasize the clouds.  They are to have joy, but there is something more.  They are commanded to focus their attention on Jesus.

“Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2)

The point is that we are not to focus either on the present suffering or the silver linings, but on our example and leader.  He saw the rewards and was willing to go through much suffering for our gain.

It may be that we can gain some benefit from trying to see the glass as half full rather than half empty, but we gain the most from fixing our attention on our Lord and trying to follow His example.  It is a dark world, but He is our light and our salvation – whether we are experiencing a busted lip or a loose tooth.