My favorite spot in the movie theater is about five rows down from the top, smack in the middle.  Experience teaches us it’s best to get to the theater a bit early, especially if the movie is popular, as the seats will fill up quickly.  One evening a couple of friends and I decided, kind of last minute, to take in a movie.  In this case, we quickly realized our “a little bit early” was actually “a little bit late.”  We thought we had given ourselves plenty of time to get our tickets and find a seat, but the movie was more popular than we had anticipated.  As we walked through the doors and down the narrow hallway with the stadium seating to our left, it took but a moment to realize we would be hard-pressed to find three seats together. The theater was packed.  As we glanced upward, there were very few open seats, maybe two or three singles.  Unfortunately for us, the only open spots were the leftovers, the seats in the first two rows, directly under the screen.  I remember wondering if I could even remember the last time I watched a movie from the front row.  This was a giant headache waiting to happen, and I mean that in the most literal sense.

 Because we had no other options, we continued down to the front of the theater.  As we walked directly under the screen to take the last three open seats together, I spied two seats on the opposite end on the second row.  If I could get the two guys sitting next to the available seats to move to their right and occupy the single open seat on their right the three of us could sit together at the end of the second row.  Anything would be better than sitting dead center of the front row.  As we were now on display directly in front of the screen in an overcrowded theater, I tried to be very subtle and cool as we made our way to the empty seats.

 I hate being the center of attention. I get embarrassed very easily, and I will go to significant measures to keep myself under the radar. The guys agreed to move to their right, but I did notice a hesitation on their part. Now the three seats were together at the end of the second row. As I moved forward to round the corner from the front of the theater to the second row, I walked smack into a black pony wall that prevented access to the seating from that side of the room. (By asking them to move to the right, I was actually asking them to make it harder for us to get to the seats.) Not only did my foot make a huge thud as it kicked the hollow wall, but when my body came to an immediate screeching halt, my friend walked right into the back of me.  It could not have been choreographed better. The theater erupted with laughter, and someone in the crowd yelled, “Hey, you could climb over!” We had just become a modern-day comedy act performing the opener for the movie about to air. So much for being subtle.

 It is so easy for us to focus on the wrong things. I grew up in a beautiful home in San Diego County, but never really took in the view and realized the beauty of it until I moved four hours away. I remember grabbing a cup of tea early one morning when I was visiting my parents.  I thought everyone was still in bed, so I walked outside to drink my tea on the patio.  The view was amazing.  It was a cool, clear morning, and I could see for miles and miles.  I was so caught up in the view I didn’t even hear my mother come outside.  As she quietly sat down next to me, she said, “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I remember wondering how I could have lived in this home for so many years and never realized how spectacular it truly was.

 The good news is, I don’t always get it wrong.   I remember taking a college photography class one semester.   I was out shooting pictures and was wandering around an old building in the desert surrounded by creosote bushes, tumbleweeds, and a few large desert trees.  As I was walking around the building looking at it from different angles, I heard rustling and movement in the tree directly behind me.  I assumed it was a large hawk.  Trying not to startle it, I slowly turned around.  There on a branch in front of me, only a few feet away, was a family of three beautiful Great Horned Desert Owls.  Most often in the Mojave Desert, these owls nest in the branches of a Joshua tree, but often they take over a nest used by some other, larger bird. Rarely do you get to see an owl during the day, but to be this close to three of them was extraordinary.  All three of them kept their eyes on me as I very slowly inched toward them.  They were not frightened enough to fly away, but they had a space requirement.  When I got too close, they would move to a nearby perch and continue watching me.  I believe they were as intrigued by me as I was of them.  As I slowly approached their second perch, they again let me get very close but flew back to their original perch when I got too close for comfort.  Back and forth we went, five or six times, before they tired of the game and chose a spot a bit higher where I could no longer see them.  There I was, in a position to take a fantastic photograph that very few people will ever get an opportunity to take, but I never picked up the camera hanging around my neck. It’s not that I was so mesmerized by the birds that I forgot the camera was there.  I was fully aware I was experiencing something I’d experience only once in a lifetime.  I was so enjoying the moment I realized taking the picture became completely unimportant. I didn’t want to look at these beautiful birds through the lens of a camera.  I wanted to see them completely unobstructed.  Quite honestly, I have no regrets.

 I know I’m not the only one who tends to lose sight of the forest for the trees. A forest is full of beautiful trees, but when we become so engrossed in looking at the individual trees, we can forget that each tree is merely one of the thousands in the forest.  Many of us become so consumed in the little details of life’s race we forget it is a marathon, not a dash.  We would love to skip to the end of the book without experiencing all the chapters, but it just doesn’t work that way. A book’s ending is meaningless if all the pages leading up to it are blank.  We are always growing, learning, experiencing, and evolving.  Looking back at my life, I can see many situations when God has put people and experiences in my life to prepare me for something else. 

 Even now, I sometimes walk into walls because I get focused on the wrong thing.  Because I believe God loves me, and he wants me to be happy and successful, I have to trust that walking into those walls is one of God’s ways to get me refocused or to change my direction.  Although redirection can often be uncomfortable, I’m confident that his way is always better than my way, and the outcome will be better than anything I could ever imagine. Only he can see both the forest and the trees at the same time.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11

Wishing you joy and peace,

Lorrie