Listening for Crickets

When Ray Charles was seven, he went blind. Can you imagine? After running through fields and playing hide and seek, after experiencing sunsets and stars, it all went away.

We watched Ray Saturday night and there was this great scene in the movie. A newly-blind Ray came walking into the house and tripped on the leg of a chair, sending him tumbling to the floor. His mom was standing in the kitchen just a few feet away and her first instinct was to run over and help him up, but she caught herself on the way and stepped back, silent. Ray called out again and again for his mom to come and help him, to save him from such a painful darkness. Tears streamed down her face as she watched him cry with unseeing eyes, but she knew she couldn't go to his side.

And suddenly, he stopped crying and sat very still. He slowly stood up and there was this turning point - a revelation. He could hear the water boiling on the stove. He could hear the fire burning. He heard a horse and wagon pass outside. And then something caught his senses across the room - a cricket traveling under a chair. He moved beside it on the floor and scooped it up into his hands, listening to it fluttering by his ear.

His mom rushed to his side as he exclaimed, "I can hear it, Mama! I can hear it and I can hear you there!"

He had lost his surroundings until he found them in a new way.

I have lost my surroundings too. I have been crying on the floor for two and a half months, wondering why my God isn't crossing the room in two large steps to sweep me up and rescue me. Does He not see my hurt and tears? What I can't see is that He is watching and that He's crying with me, His heart breaking in tune with mine.

If I would only stop long enough to listen...

Maybe some moment soon, I'll be able to hear the cricket. And in the process, discover a new way of seeing that He knows I'll need for the next step.