The Fog Doesn't Dull the Moon

Facebook was raging tonight with reports of the beautiful red moon. My talented friend captured it like this:

PC: Sandra del Cid

Then I went out walking tonight because the house seemed loud. The kids were all in bed, and my husband was working on his computer, but the noise of my day echoed off the walls and my soul could not quiet down. It was a day full of arguments, bossiness, bullying, and whining. The kids couldn't seem to control their emotions or choose obedience. I also couldn't seem to control my emotions or choose grace. I felt like bursting.

My husband suggested I go for a run. My response: "I don't want to run. I want to punch something and scream."

But there was nothing here to punch that I wouldn't later regret, and there was no where to scream when you live in the middle of the city. So I did what I thought might help: took a walk while intending to knock out some errands and feel good about that. Well, shopping without kids did feel therapeutic until I couldn't find a part we needed to fix our broken toilet.  A rude storeowner finally tipped my coping scale, and I started to cry.

I didn't even bother wiping the tears away as I walked right past the roadway home and headed for the river instead. For thirty minutes or more, I sat on a bench staring out at the Han River. I let myself cry and cry and cry. I cried for my failures as a mom. I cried for my children's sins. I cried for the challenges of fixing a household appliance in a foreign country. I cried for the day without crying, when I made mistake after mistake, all the while wanting to start over but feeling buried and beaten and broken.

And through those tears I saw the moon.

It was full and high in the sky--above the city silhouette on the far side of the river. Its light barely broke through the thick grey fog that hung over Seoul and wrapped around me. "It's so dull," I thought. "It looks like how I feel."

Dull. Faded. Worn. Cold.

Then I remembered the photos I'd seen earlier online. That moon had seemed so much more alive, like a fire blazing warm and bold. "I wish I had that moon."

Then I stopped in my sad thoughts of self-pity. It was the same moon.

It was the same moon.

Because my heart felt lonely and lost, I craved the brilliance of a full moon--a symbol of illumination even in the dark of night. Yet I failed to remember that the moon shines the same regardless of how we perceive it. Fog or no fog, it still reflects light high above the extent of those clouds. To say the moon's light was shining less for me than for my friends in America would be like holding my hand over its image in my sight path and saying it suddenly disappeared.

The fog is there, but it doesn't dull the moon. The moon still lights the night.

And I think of how I'd thought the sad Seoul moon had mirrored my own droopy heart. Maybe my assumptions about hope and help are wrong too. Through my tears, I may look to heaven for comfort and yet not experience a breathtaking, photo-worthy answer, but it's not because heaven has lost any of its brilliance but rather because a fog has shielded my eyes.

God is God no matter how we perceive Him.

And He may seem far away or uninterested or even mean, but it is then--especially then--that I must read and remember the promises of His character in the Bible. Those verses serve as assurances of truth--just like the photos I saw tonight of the moon without the blocking of fog. Even if I can't see or feel it myself, I can be confident in what God is like because the Bible tells us who He is.

The moon may seem dull, but that is only because I skewed its description with circumstances.
Likewise, God may seem uncaring, but that is only because I skewed His description with circumstances.

"I am that I am," He said, so I must not fog the truth of His being or dull the brilliance of His beauty.