Stripes On The Wall

Everyone tends to wake up a little bleary eyed.
It takes a few minutes to really focus.
Those few minutes of being half asleep and half awake can be confusing.
If you wear glasses or contacts, you may not be sure you are seeing things correctly.

That happened when I woke up.
I love the early morning light.
I love the soft glow the sun makes on the golden colored walls.
It is my favorite time of day.

My husband was away on business.
I fell asleep on a comfy chair in our bedroom.
Morning came before I knew it.
I woke up to shapes on the wall in front of me.

For those first few minutes, I had to get my bearings.
I saw the bed that was still made and realized I had fallen asleep hours before.
My glasses were on my dresser.
I rubbed my eyes and the shapes were still on the wall.

The wall in front of me had stripes on it.
It actually looked like there were bars on the wall.
I still could not make sense of what I was seeing.
I grabbed my phone and took a picture.

If I was simply imagining it, the image would not be in the picture I took.
When I looked at the picture on my phone, the bars were there.
I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing.
I still could not imagine what was making the bars on the wall.

I looked around.
The blinds were still closed.
I could see the sunlight begging to be let in.
The door that leads to the balcony has a shade that is pulled down each night.

The window that is on the side of my bedroom looks out onto the balcony.
The sun was trying to peek around the edges of the blinds and the shade.
I could see glimpses of the white railing that goes around the balcony.
Could it be?

Was the sun shining in such a way that the bars I saw were simply shadows?
Were the bars actually the shadows of the balcony railing?
That seemed to be the only logical explanation.
That seemed to be the only explanation that made sense.

I was fascinated by the bars on the wall.
I thought of an old poem my mother used to say to me.
It was a poem about perspective.
It was a poem about the way we look at things.

Two men were behind prison bars.
They both looked out.
One saw mud.
The other stars.

I could look at these shadows as bars.
I could look at these shadows as stripes.
I could be amazed at the way the sunlight made perfect shapes on my bedroom wall.
I could be astounded at the way the light plays tricks on our eyes.

Shadows of bars on a wall could remind a person of what shackles them.
The bars could represent a lack of freedom.
The bars could stand for the things that bind us.
The bars could stand for the things that hold us bound.

Stripes on a wall could be a sort of whimsy.
They could fascinate as you ponder how they got there in the first place.
Stripes on a wall could remind us of our salvation.
They could remind us of One who received stripes on our behalf.

Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.  Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. (Isaiah 53:1-9)

I thought of my mother’s poem as I looked at the stripes on the wall.
I thought of the Suffering Servant passage in the book of Isaiah.
I thought of Jesus’ wounds that heal us when we come to Him in faith for our salvation.
I thought of what those wounds are often called: stripes.

By His stripes, we are healed.

The sun, begging to be let in my room in the early morning hours, cast shadows on the wall.
The shadows were stripes from the balcony railing.
I knew what they were.
I also knew what they meant.

By Your stripes, Lord Jesus, I am healed.
You bore the stripes; You bore the wounds in my place.
The stripes on the wall reminded me of all You did for me.
Thank you, Lord Jesus.

My sleepy eyes saw more than they knew.