I was in Le Bonheur Children's Hospital last Thursday. Brian and I had gone on a round of visiting sick folk, and our final destination was Le Bonheur. We got to the hospital just as Luke, this beautiful nine-month-old baby boy, was coming up from recovery. He just looked beautiful—cherubic in form and color. He looked more like he was sleeping peacefully rather than having just undergone four hours of intense surgery. I stepped back as his young mother drank him in ravenously with her eyes and began to gently touch him. She pulled his gown up to look him over and then listened as the nurse told her the good news that the surgery was successful and that he would be asleep for a couple of hours. I watched tension drain from her face and lines of contentment replace lines of concern.

           We chatted quietly and all silently gave thanks. She couldn’t take her eyes off of him as we talked, and then she made this comment, one I have never heard in all my years of being around my own six children or countless other babies. With a contented smile on her face she said, “I can’t wait to change his diaper.” It caught me off guard as a strange comment for a moment and then I recalled her looking over his stomach and rubbing the smooth soft infant flesh that had only a small bandage and it hit me. She has never changed his diaper, well – not a bad diaper! (If you have never changed one of these I can’t explain it, if you have no explanation is necessary.) Parents fight over who doesn’t have to change the bad diaper, and she is longing to do it. He is nine months old and she has never changed a bad poop diaper!

          Now, the rest of the story – when Luke was just days old, it was discovered he had a congenital complication which required an invasive surgery on his bottom. His whole life he has had a little colostomy bag on his stomach to catch every bowel moment. And now as she looked at him, rubbing her hand over his smooth stomach, which all his life has had this alien contraption attached, she is saying her greatest joy will be what most parents consider their greatest nightmare—who gets the stinky diaper.

           Amazing how much our perspective affects how we look at simple things. What most people would consider a duty, she will consider a privilege! Here are two mothers, one holding her nose, the other rejoicing over the mess. Perspective. It is everything. The same messy situation, yet one will view it with joy and delight because it means her child is normal whereas, most parents will just look at it as a task that has to be done, and maybe when they are in a hurry a downright irritation – I certainly have.

          Just recently I started a corresponding with a pastor in Africa who James Daniels met him on a plane ride home from Italy. I sent him an email and after pleasantries, I asked him about himself and his ministry.

He is located in a town called Bushbuckridge in the Limpopo Province in South Africa. I will let him

describe what he has been doing the last ten years. (It is an email so the language is that of an email.):

          “Well I am born Zambian in central Africa and 10 years ago responded to a missionary call to South Africa. I work mostly in villages and war stricken areas in southern Africa. I have founded churches in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Ethiopia. I have also founded a mobile bible college, which train missionaries and local pastors. In ten years I have trained over 427 missionaries. The areas I work in are villages and the people mostly are unemployed due to this fact we have a lot gangsterism. But we thank God that God is helping us to move in a mighty way. Our vision is very simple 1. To win souls for Christ. 2. To train disciples. 3.To send missionaries. We are church planters and trainers of church leaders that is our main concern. Mostly here we suffer material lack- in terms of library in our college also clothes to dress the poor and food stuffs in some areas. I am on my way to Rwanda on Wednesday. It is not a safe country but we would love to start work there. There is tribal wars etc. but Jesus is the prince of peace. Please pray for me it is a very scary country but we are going there to save people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

          I sometimes complain when I am dissatisfied with the irritations of ministry life, or get stressed out over problems that come with dealing with my own sin and working in an organization where people have to vow they are sinners to join. I often times imagine I am stretching myself in ministry with the committees I serve on that help to plant other churches and provide conferences for youth all across America. I wonder what the workload will be like with the added responsibility of the new building. Speaking of which, Dr. Alexander sent me pictures of the church they are building to hold 800. It is about one-third the size of the one we are planning and is made of concrete block. The walls are up, and they are waiting for roofing. The reason the walls are up is because folk in their congregation hand-make the concrete block!  But, they can’t make roofing material.

          I thank God for Dr. Alexander; his is a voice of perspective to a parish minister in Middle America. Our building looks a lot more beautiful now, ministry frustrations don’t seem quite as bad, and my study without windows looks more like a lodge. No one will threaten my life when I go out of town for a conference, and the folk who come to the clothes closet on Saturday will not be complaining about losing their sons to gangs. God is constantly giving all of us reminders to be thankful if we just open our eyes to see and listen with our ears. It might be in a hospital, or an email, or even in the garden. God’s glory is everywhere, and he is speaking, telling us that we need to get out of ourselves and our own little anxieties and see from a different perspective!