Trees

One of my favorite things James Granger has taught about is in Mark 8:22-25. It's now one of my favorite stories. It's about a blind man who receives his sight back from Jesus by way of His spit. In the midst of the process, Jesus asks the man what he sees and he responds, "I see people, they look like trees walking around."

The idea is that we too see people as trees. Simply put, we see people as boring and emotion-less objects that are there to be looked at, ignored, or exist simply to get in our way, rather than unique creations made in the image of God.

It's been tough transitioning to Grosse Pointe. I feel out of place. Every day, every car here looks like it's been washed and cleaned, everyone dresses nice, and everyone has a dog to walk in the evening. Men in suits and bluetooth devices in their ears walk around at lunchtime. Most houses are huge and look nice and the ones that aren't huge still look very nice. I'm sitting at a Panera right now and in order to follow my rule of buying something whenever I sit down at a coffee shop/something like that, I bought a bagel, the cheapest thing on the menu (for $1.70 nonetheless!) It's a community where I feel like everything is more expensive and nicer than what I bring to the table. Obviously, it's full of great people with great hearts who love Jesus and people that need to be saved by Jesus; it's not really different than Mason, Northville, or East Lansing. But still, my first impressions are only what I see.

Through my first few days in Grosse Pointe, I'm fighting and praying to see people and not trees. I'm praying for God to put people in my path that I can love and whom can love me. I'm excited to see what happens.

And there are plenty of actual trees here too.