Oranges

I went to grocery store yesterday and saw the prettiest display of oranges that I have ever remember seeing.  They were stacked up on a display and were the prettiest color of orange that I have ever seen.  The display had a light hanging down that gave them a special glow.

After seeing them I decided that I would buy some.  Then as I would pick them up (one by one) and when they were out from under that light, I saw that they were not perfect.  They had flaws.  They had discolorations.   Some were even bruised.  I went ahead and bought some, but the experience started me to think.

We are in many ways like those oranges.  We live in a society that demands perfection, so we go to great extremes to try to have that perfect look like the store gave to those oranges.  The problem is that we are no more perfect than those oranges were.

So what happens when we are taken out of that light that is masking us, and our imperfections are revealed?  How do we react when the imperfections of others are revealed?  Can we accept that everybody has both good and bad within them?  Or, do we discard them because they are no longer able to present themselves as being perfect?  If we discard them then, what becomes of the rest of us who are really no more perfect than they are - but just have not been discovered yet?

I believe that this is where love and grace and mercy shines out.  Mercy means that we do not discard them because of their faults.  Grace enables us to focus on the good things that they bring to us.  Love causes us to focus on them instead on where they have failed us.

Isn't this what God does when He enters our lives?  Doesn't He show us mercy for our shortcomings?  Doesn't He give us grace so we can be all that we were made to be?  Doesn't His love focus on us rather than how we have failed Him?

I believe that true friendship and love can only be experienced as we come out from under that artificial and deceiving light so that we see each other as we really are.

By the way, those oranges that were not perfect, were still very delicious all the same and I could not have known this as long as they were in that artificial and deceiving light at the store.  It is when I took them out and put them in the true light that I could enjoy them.