Seven Spiritual Gifts Of Waiting by Holly W. Whitcomb

Author:Holly W. Whitcomb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Publishers

A number of years ago, I was sharing with a friend that I was going through a period of feeling blue, of feeling depressed. I told my friend I was usually a very “up,” enthusiastic, positive person, and that this depression was awkward and uncomfortable, and was wearing me down.

Much to my amazement, my friend asked me, “Can you look at this period of depression as a messenger who is trying to tell you something? Can you regard this depression as a gift from which you might gain some new understanding or some new insight?”

Given the way I was feeling, it was very hard to imagine depression as a positive messenger or, even more ludicrously, as a gift. I had always regarded depression as something to be warded off at all costs. I went home that day and asked myself if there were a possibility that I could look at this depression differently. Was this an opportunity for me to change something, an opportunity to grow? I thought of Christina Baldwin’s great line, “Life is a great unending opportunity to see things differently, to keep reframing disaster and discouragement into faith.”2 It got me thinking about reframing.

Our living room walls are covered with pictures. These are not ordinary pictures, but framed mementos from all over the world: wondrous, but simple handmade items purchased at little cost. In our collection is a small, one-hundred-year-old quilt bought on the streets of New Delhi, a ninety-eight-cent clay necklace from a bazaar in Mexico, a carved wooden fan from Beijing. For years I have taken my foreign excursion treasures over to Ed at You Frame It. Ed is a master reframer. He eyeballs a piece, and he instantly sees it transformed. He imagines the frame color, the mat color, ascertains whether it should be double-matted, and what the dimensions of the shadow box should be. Presto. The ninety-eight-cent clay necklace becomes a masterpiece. I am always amazed. Framed and shadowboxed, these beloved collectibles look as if they could be hanging in a museum.

In the Beatitudes Jesus offers us the chance to be in the reframing business. Many of the persons described in the Beatitudes, says well-known preacher Fred Craddock, “are victims, to be sure, but the beatitudes deliver them from a victim mentality.”3 The Beatitudes invite us to see blessedness even in the midst of tumult and suffering. They invite us not to be trapped by circumstances, but to look for the grace, to find the possibilities, to explore the edges for growth.

The ultimate example of reframing is the Easter Story—for what are the Beatitudes about if not seeing resurrection in the midst of crucifixion? Is there any greater example of reframing than Jesus’ transformation from tortured death to empty tomb? Each time we read the Beatitudes, they encourage us to live as people who believe in Easter, as reframers of life.

If the ultimate reframe is Easter, perhaps the most mundane reframe is waiting. But

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