Got Glow?

“It’s so shiny, Mom,” my Maria exclaimed yesterday afternoon as she dropped me off at G’s Auto Paint and Body Shop. In the sun the family Sienna minivan glowed. It’s red burgundy exterior sparkled  from the new side door and back quarter panel. In fact the whole van glittered from a wash and buff polish from workers who clearly love their job.

Days before the shop owner led me inside to inspect the new passenger side in dull brown primer.

Mr. G encouraged me. “Go on, touch it. We buff it first with a fine grit, before we do the coat and final paint, so it feels like notebook paper.” My fingers affirmed his simile.

It’s been a month since those fingers have felt at ease behind the minivan’s steering wheel. Three weeks and two days of that month, Richard G’s Body Shop kept the van’s ugly scars hidden from my eyes and from that shame that, before Christmas, twisted me in ugly knots, whenever I drove it in public.

We did not rent a vehicle, though we almost did to drive north to visit family over the Martin Luther King weekend. A new polar vortex and my father-in-law’s advice belayed that trip until after the van was repaired.

This coming weekend, however, Bud has a bus trip north with Coach JB and his team of men and women to the Special Olympics Basketball Tournament. They’ll join teams from around the state to shoot hoops, play carnival games, reggae the big dance.

The coaches or chaperones will drive them to hotels and restaurants, en masse. In public some athletes might giggle too much, others may shout to talk, others will try to communicate; some can’t talk at all. They will gesture in ways that the worldly might turn away from, but shouldn’t.

The teams will wear regional uniforms. Bud’s team wears gray sweatpants, gray long sleeve shirts, and dark burgundy team tee shirts. After the competition, Bud’s team members will march in gray/ burgundy to the Olympic podium. Hands will clap and high five. Cell cameras will lift and snap as the team bend for their ribbons and medals. They may not get the top spots, but they will grin brilliantly big.

Thank God that Bud and his teammate pals enjoy the right to live and move and have their being. Since, by faith, they know Jesus—all go to church—their lives gleam in peculiar ways the elites of this world can’t fathom.

Seems God uses challenges, physical, mental, spiritual--and accidental-- to buff away egocentric scars so that His holy brilliance is revealed in us. His Son painted his own lifeblood over human selfishness, so that our souls, our very bodies would not extinguish in a deadly ash heap.  Via Jesus faith we will glow in forever living, joined with loved ones, pals, and God, the true God of brilliant lights.