REFLECTIONS

Hidden in the Picture

There was a childhood pastime for rainy days when physical activity was limited. I remember books filled with drawings that contained other images within them that were not obvious to see. The pastime was to locate those images hidden in the picture.

The search often required the primary drawing to be viewed from all angles and with a mind free from limitation or preconceived notions. It was fun even if it did not burn off pent-up energy that built in a young body through the day. The activity challenged the mind and stimulated the imagination.

Memories of those childhood days were rekindled recently as I reflected on an unlikely event, and how God’s hand appears in such unlikely and surprising ways. Sometimes it seems that He plays his own game of “hidden in the picture” with us. He seems to want us to know there is more going on around us than meets the eye. Every event reaches further than we can see, and every person connects lives in ways never imagined. It was one such connection that captured my attention.

An email from a stranger appeared in my inbox one day recently. It referenced an edition of Reflections written more that eighteen months earlier. The piece was entitled An Uncle I Never Knew. In the email, Ray identified himself as a relative of Lt. Richard Stanton who was the subject of the piece. Richard was killed in 1943 while serving in the Pacific theater of World War II, and Ray was seeking some information about his life. Along with answers I could provide, I asked if he could share how he had come across the referenced Reflections. His response was surprising to me.

“I had exhausted all of the typical research sources [including] multiple Google searches and they added nothing. I had really given up… Then one evening I absentmindedly tried Google again. I must have gone through 30-40 pages, not paying much attention, and then, quite unexpectedly, I noticed an entry for your page. I have tried to duplicate my search criteria and have never again found your page that way… I can’t explain it. ‘Somebody’ must have inspired your writing; ‘Somebody’ definitely must have guided me to you!”

And “Somebody” reached beyond the bounds of normal distribution, back into the life of a person tragically killed 70 years before to connect two lives hidden in the picture God had sketched long ago. Isn’t it amazing to view our lives from all angles, our minds free from limitation or preconceived notions, and discover God’s hand hidden in the picture within it shaping events that reach further than we have seen, and connecting lives in ways we never imagined!

You are the light of the world,

Richard +

www.reflectingthesavior.org

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