Winks

I have always thought of winks as a special way to communicate quickly and personally to someone you love, in a crowd, without gaining anyone else’s notice but the one you intend to. They are also semi-rare events, for those special moments; moments when you see your spouse hanging out with your friends or family and you are overcome with thankfulness or love- or the moment when you hit a big hit in baseball and your dad let’s you know he is proud of you- or when your grandmother catches you doing something just right and keeps it between the two of you. I think that God winks at us as well, with quiet little messages directed right to us, that lets us know He is there with us. I believe shooting stars are a way He winks at us. Perhaps I think this because when I sit below the enormous night sky, I am usually thinking through some sort of problem. This usually leads me to contemplate God’s vastness and my insignificance. At that point He shoots a meteor across the stratosphere as if to say, “I know, and I love you.” In the big enormous sky, a quick event, unnoticed by most to communicate His love- a wink.

Most recently, we received a wink in a totally different way. We love the show Psych, and religiously check our Internet to see if the latest episode has been posted. The new episode for this season premiered Wednesday night. We had been anticipating it for months and were looking forward to a welcome break from the emotion of moving to Africa. The show was a little disappointing, which is good, since we will be leaving it behind in a few days with the rest of things we love. Surprisingly, at the end of the episode, Shawn, the lead character, has a tearful, heart wrenching and unexpected good-bye with his girlfriend. She told him that she was leaving to Uganda to help start an orphanage for children affected by HIV. Uganda? Really? really? How many places could have the writers chosen? I am not sure what specifically led them to write “I am going to Uganda,” but I have a feeling Jesus chuckled when He helped inspire it. For most of the viewers of this TV show, they probably thought nothing of it, rather than some far off land. To us, it was a wink. It was as if Jesus wanted to say, “I know you are finishing packing, closing up your house, saying your goodbyes and questioning why in the world are we doing this. So, incase the other hundred ways I have confirmed this calling in your life have been forgotten, I wanted to remind you it is me who is calling you. I love you and I am going before you and I am going with you.”