The Pear

In the midst of life as a Christian we can make things very complicated that never started out that way. I think that is why Paul warned against silly debates and disputes. I can remember as a child worrying that forgetting my bed time prayers would leave me without God's favor or if I prayed without "In Jesus Name" at the close, it canceled them out.
I have had "bad" things happen in my life and immediately identified my own responsibility because I hadn't tithed or read my Bible that week. I've searched the scripture poring over foot notes looking for the black and white truth of some concept. I've worried that I missed something by reading the New Living instead of the King James.
I've tried to fit the divine into my human hands when in fact my human form was shaped by divine hands.
Yesterday morning I was eating a pear when I noticed the little oval sticker was still on it after I took a bite. So I peeled it off and in its place was a perfect little heart, the scar of the sticker. Two thoughts drifted across my mind at once, "What a weird coincidence" and "Nothing happens without God causing it." The first thought was written by human hands, the second by divine.
In the way that the Holy Spirit very quickly fills us with truth not confined to real time, I realized that the sentence was "Nothing happens without God causing it." Not allowing, causing.
God is not an engineer who put the world into motion on automatic, stopping by on occasion to confirm it still spinning. He did not allow the water melon that sits on my counter to grow with stripes, he painted it. He does not allow my lungs to receive air, he breathes into them.
Yes, I stopped and took a picture of my pear. It would've been prettier without that horse bite I'd already taken of it. Then again, I do put my human hands, mouth and feet to most things before turning them gently around to understand the divine that might be just hidden behind something. I should be taking these human hands to peel away until I find the mark of God.
As a little girl, the world was wondrous and magical to me. Sights, sounds and textures were fascinating. Snowflakes seemed impossible and dewy grass under my feet was glorious year after year. I am still captured by the wonder of it all. You may think it is fanciful but I am sure that God made an oval sticker leave a heart-shaped scar on my pear.
Human hands holding the divine. The divine holding hands with man.
My pear.
My Emanuel.

Isaiah 49:16 See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.