We talked about it this morning, when I pulled this band over my wrist:  What are these colored bands for, anyway?  To proclaim our interest….to make people ask why….to get a chance to tell someone how important it is….to remind us to pray….to remind us to focus on things that matter.

I know a young man who wears a braided leather one, asked for and bought specifically to remind him to live in God’s presence.  I wondered for a minute what would happen if we all wore bands to remember God-with-us, and I thought of the way we will pass the bread and the cup on Sunday to remember Christ… Emmanuel, God with us in the flesh…“Do this in remembrance of Me.”  What if we all wore bands to remind us every day what Christ has done for us, and proclaim our cause to everyone who sees?

And there was that sudden twist of perspective when things shift and turn to fit together in a new way.

Maybe the bands are of His choosing and not at all what I expect.  Maybe the things that I mark as burdens, the very circumstances that I count trials, are the bands in the everyday that remind me to seek His presence most clearly.  Disability of joints and nerves that constantly remind of weakness but point me to the things that matter most.  Grief that pushes me to pour out my heart to the One who hears.  Earth-shaking changes that lead me to the Rock that will never be shaken, the peace that passes all understanding.  Don’t these things make people ask why, give me chances to tell someone how important this walk of faith is?

The ugly hurtful things that I would rather escape might look different from the vantage point of heaven’s grace….they could be the brightly colored bands to wear on a life, to remind of the cross and His faithful love, as tangible as a leather cord, as visible as this plastic wristband.