Eyes

Have you ever been haunted by a song? Or changed? Or anything? No, of course you haven’t. You’re not weird like me. But if you were, maybe you could relate. I guess I’ll have to explain it to you.

I never realized how many people there are around me. I mean, I have, but I never really “got” it. Think about your life for a second. You think it’s complicated, right? I think mine is. Sometimes, it’s too complicated. Okay, good, now that you’re thinking about that, think about this: How much of that “web of life” is made of other people? Quite a bit, I’m guessing. Everything you do in your life, it’s linked by people. Everyone you know is, obviously, a person. You have strong relationships, weak ones, good ones, bad ones, new ones, old ones, cherished ones, hated ones, hopeful ones, ones that will never be, ones you wish could be, ones that you’re just learning about, ones just being created…the list goes on. That’s your web. Like I said, it’s complicated, right?

Consider this: every one of those people has a web just as complicated as yours. And they know people who know people. There are circumstances in their life that you are a part of, and there are ones you are not, just as they aren’t a part of every aspect of your life. There’re things you keep hidden from them, things they keep hidden from you, things others keep hidden from both of you, and things left unspoken. Those complicated webs just got ten times more complex.

I’d been thinking about this for weeks. There are all these problems that people have that you’ll never know about. There’re a thousand reasons why a person is who he or she is. There’s no way you’ll ever know them all. Every action you make, every action they make, it’s made for a reason. Some people think that the future is predestined and set in stone. I disagree. The future is the choices we make every single moment, every second, every fraction of a second. There is nothing that we do that doesn’t affect our future. I’m not the kind of person who believes God has been limited by one future. If God is as powerful as we claim, should he not see all possible outcomes of all possible choices at all possible times? Just because the choices we make determine the future does not mean that God is blind to the future. If all outcomes are known to Him, he is never caught off guard.

But that’s getting away from my point, although it relates. My point is that there are all these people around us going a thousand different directions every day, including us. We don’t share a reality…instead, each one of our realities is intertwined without us even realizing it. We may never know what is really going on in a person’s life. All we see is what they do, what they say, what we think they are. Most of the time, we don’t even care about all the things that drive them to be who they are. Everyone has a weight slung around their neck. Sometimes we see it, sometimes we don’t. We’re blinded by ourselves and our narrow realities.

So, as I said, I had been thinking about this for a while, wondering what is behind every glance, every smile, every frown, every laugh, every expression that you can’t tell if it’s real or not. And then I heard this song that was exactly what I’d been thinking and it perfectly captured all those thoughts. It’s called “Give Me Your Eyes” by Brandon Heath. The first verse goes like this:

Looked down from a broken sky
Traced out by the city lights
My world from a mile high
Best seat in the house tonight
Touched down on the cold black top
Hold on for the sudden stop
Breathe in the familiar shock
Of confusion and chaos
All those people going somewhere,
Why have I never cared?

Exactly. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. It’s like someone hit a pause button and suddenly I’m aware of all the layers to everything happening around me. Why haven’t I ever cared about all these things around me?

Then I heard the next lines of the song:

Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I’ve been missing
Give me your love for humanity.

Can you imagine what it would be like to see through other people? Not like (ew) X-Ray vision, but to see all their struggles and problems and insecurities and needs. It would be too much to take in. It’d be like squeezing a lifetime’s worth of a friendship into a fraction of a second. It would overload you. You couldn’t take it all in. It’d be like standing in front of a dam just as it burst and a wall of water washed you away. I don’t know why, but I find that incredibly humbling. I finally realize, no matter how well you really know a person, you don’t know them.

I was talking to a friend. I’m not even sure what I was doing. I know what—at some level—I should do, but I don’t want to and can’t. I was seeing it from my view, not hers. Although, I think, in all honesty, she knows what I should do. But apparently she doesn’t want to either. I was afraid of messing up a relationship, of my web getting tangled in someone else’s. I was prepared to…sacrifice a friendship to keep from ruining a relationship.

But my friend told me something that gave me “eyes” for a second. After I told her I would give up a friendship for her relationship she told me, “Well, if one were ruined, I’d prefer it if you left me the other.” Wow. That was all I could say. That made so much sense. And, yeah, I don’t completely get it. No one does or ever will.

But I think, maybe, just maybe, we see shadows of what God sees through his eyes. I have a new…genuine caring for, well, everyone. Every moment I think I know who they are and what they are, I’m reminded that I really don’t. That’s a very humbling thought. There’s real hurt out there, and most of that hurt will go unrecognized by everyone but the person it’s happening to...and to God’s eyes.

If you want to hear the song, go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTsYAZvHsEQ