Be Thou My Vision

I woke with Ecclesiastes 3:11 in my head this morning.

“God makes everything beautiful in his time,” my brain hummed as I boiled the water for my coffee.
“God makes everything beautiful in his time,” my heart sang as I padded around in my bathrobe, my hair still wet from the shower.

“God makes everything beautiful in his time,” my heart hoped as I tied my shoes and grabbed the leash.

It's a big day in NC. The state is voting on Amendment One, a proposed addition to our Constitution that would give a very rigid definition of marriage and the benefits associated with it. Not to get too detailed, but the amendment would harm the medical and end of life rights of both straight and gay unmarried couples and their children, along with several other benefits we currently hold as self-evident. It's a shameful bit of legislation, and most polls show it passing.

And so it's a sad day too.

A clear sense of right and wrong is in the midst of the issue, but just as it is clear—obvious—it's clear—transparent. I'm learning that issues of right and wrong aren't what we see, they are what we see through, saying as much about us as they do about the topic at hand. They are lenses. Lenses change our vision. Lenses can bring clarity or they can make us blind. It's our choice.

“Without vision, the people perish,” Proverbs 29:18 says.

And so I pray to keep my vision. I keep looking, lift my eyes to the hills with the confident expectation that my own lenses will change, but that my vision will remain.

Today, I believe my vote is right. Right in the context of history, right in the context of scripture, right in the context of who I know God to be, right for the people of North Carolina.

And I believe, no matter the outcome, that all things will be made beautiful in God's time.