“No. It’s navy. I can’t believe I have been wearing this sweater for years and thought it was black. It’s obviously navy!”
I walked into Sunday school, with my sweater over my arm. I tried to get back up from several people.
“This sweater is navy, right?”
No matter how much I wanted to be right and believe my eyes they all agreed that my sweater was indeed black. I have never had any problem with colors, but the expert, Google, says that a violet hue is common for a while after cataract surgery. That makes sence, black with a violet tint would be a little navy.
This was pretty funny. My new lenses told me the sweater was navy. It’s hard to disbelieve your very eyes, so it took several people to help me understand that my sweater was black.
At this time in our country I believe it’s way more difficult for people to know the truth about many things. They have conflicting information hurled at them from all sides. At least the fortunate ones do. Think how totally confusing it would be right now to have any idea of what is actually correct if someone isn’t purposely speaking God’s truth into their lives.
This week my pastor spoke on how God uses messed up, broken people in extraordinary ways. The Bible passage he spoke on would be a box office hit based on how many people run to the theatre for a sordid tale. Tamar was a complete mess. We don’t know why she did what she did, but we do know that she slept with her brother-in-law and pretended to be a prostitute to trick her father-in-law into sleeping with her. Don’t believe me? Read Genesis 38.
In that culture maybe she was just trying to survive because women had no rights. Maybe she thought her only out was to pretend to be a prostitute and try to get pregnant so someone would take care of her. We can only guess at her motives, but the point is that even though she made some really messed up choices God never counted her out.
While we look at what we can see and make assumptions based on what we know to be true our gracious heavenly father sees so much more clearly than we ever could. He sees straight into a person’s heart. If you are interested in the rest of the story read Matthew 1: 1-3. You will find that Tamar is in the lineage of Jesus Christ.
She is listed in the bloodline of the one we celebrate at Christmas. If God can use Tamar for great things he can help even the most broken among us to see clearly the light of the Savior. His light is still shining, and He is still holding out his nail scared hand to help anyone who longs for more, anyone searching for answers, anyone lonely, anyone sick, anyone addicted. The Savior is still only a prayer away.
Jan Penton Miller is a retired Mississippi school educator.