Many months back while I was on a medical elective in a missions hospital at Kalimantan, I saw the Indonesian people in the small town carrying these huge rainbow-coloured umbrellas. Years ago in Nepal while visiting the orphanage, I saw them quite frequently too. They were cheap. They were massive. They were practical.
Most of all, I thought they were beautiful.
A rainbow-colored umbrella. What a poignant metaphor.
So you can imagine my gratitude and utter joy when a new friend I had made in Kalimantan had gone out of his way to get that rainbow-coloured umbrella for me as a parting gift. It touched me deeply.
It was very precious, even more so because I had plans to use it for a photoshoot for my next book, A Taste of Rainbow. I placed it in my living room. It was very precious.
Then, it got lost.
How, I do not know. I never had the chance to even bring it out of the house. Our home helper, W, insisted she had never seen it, even though it was huge. I remember showing it to her many months ago. She claimed to have searched the entire house, which isn't very big if you've seen my place. It was around that time I lost it when my loved ones claimed to have lost some items from their drawers as well. After pressing W persistently, the lost items mysteriously re-appeared. Of late, many horror stories about maids on the newspapers had left us quite disillusioned, too. But of all things, I knew an umbrella was hardly worth stealing. Yet as the days went by, as I became increasingly sure of where I had placed it, as this lost item continually niggled at me, and as I became irritated, the thoughts of it being stolen became... less impossible.
It seemed a stupid thing to be so preoccupied by an item so seemingly unimportant. It seemed even more stupid to be suspicious that it was stolen.
But a friend had just lost a maid because she started to steal. That's how we also lost our previous home-helper who'd served us for 13 years faithfully.
Don't we keep score of our emotional debts this way too? Some of them are hardly worth remembering, yet we keep score anyway.
I searched everywhere. I combed the house for weeks-my house isn't big to begin with. I went to the stores to see if I could find it. I scoured the internet. And I also asked friends travelling to Indonesia to keep a lookout for it for me. It was ridiculous. It's just an umbrella. Let it go.
Don't we like to harbour our debts in the same way too? We hunt the wrongs done to us down, almost pathologically.
What I didn't realise was how relevant this incident was to God's lesson to me this season. My accident was a mark of the end of the season for learning about Faith. After my fracture and torn gracilis muscle, I saw how God was consistently speaking to me about the meaning of Grace. Grace is what we receive from God when we are given what we don't deserve. It is what we need every day, if only we were humble enough to admit so. In the same way, grace is what we extend to others when we choose to give them what we think they may not deserve, too.
It was only recently at church that I saw how closely bitterness is linked to grace, or rather, a lack of it. It hit me like a tonne of bricks to read one day, ".. lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble..."-Hebrews 12:15.
I knew, that there were roots of bitterness in the soil of my heart, and they had left me sick, frustrated, angry at certain people in my life. For months, I had prayed about certain broken relationships. God finally revealed to me that Grace was needed. I couldn't forgive on my own.
Over breakfast today, before I shared anything much about myself, Aunty Ay shared that her maid had left. Aunty Ay admitted she was bitter because her maid had stolen things, and her family had, in their opinion, treated her as best as they could. It was then when it hit the both of us, that we both needed God's grace to overcome our situation, and we needed to extend grace to people around us. After all, what is something stolen compared to the hurt of accusation or the price to pay for bitterness? We both agreed that the missing items, in the light of relationships and the value of grace which God was teaching us through these situations, were absolutely insignificant.
I went home, silent. Silly me. It's just an umbrella. So what if I'll never find it. So what if it was really stolen. Does it really matter? W has been serving us faithfully for the past 9 years. It is because of her that our home is kept in order. So what if she took it and could not admit it? Maybe she gave it to a friend who really needed it. And perhaps, she didn't take it at all. It could still be somewhere at home, hiding.
I went into my room and prayed. This wasn't about an umbrella. This was a prayer for Grace, to uproot all the roots of bitterness I had allowed to sink into my life. This was a prayer for God's divine spirit to help me forgive the people whom I felt had hurt and wronged me.
A quick prayer and I was out of the house again, rushing out to meet a friend for lunch. I was about to cross the road when I saw a man in a jet-black shirt and pants carrying the most iridescent and beautiful rainbow umbrella!
I froze.
Then, I ran.
God, I don't believe this. You've got to be kidding.
"Hi." I stopped him. And then, I did what I often do. I said hello and made small talk with a complete stranger. It was awkward. He wasn't even Singaporean.
"I know this sounds really strange, but I've been looking all over for a rainbow umbrella just like yours, and I was wondering, if... if I could buy it from you."
He was stunned.
"No."
"No?"
The word crushed me like an ant beneath an anvil.
I didn't know what else to do. "Then could you tell me where you got this from? So I can buy one, too?"
"It's from Durham."
"Durham? Like USA?"
Great.
So I start to tell him about the umbrella I lost, about what rainbows mean to me, and about the book and the photoshoot I am going to do, and maybe he felt sorry, or surprised or amused or genuinely moved, but he said, "Here you go."
"How much would you like for it?"
"Take it," he smiled. The Filipino man in black smiled.
I gave him my jet-black umbrella in return. "Here," I said. "For you."
"Oh, an exchange!" He said, bemused.
And so that is how my rainbow umbrella got united with me again.
Sometimes, I think it startles me to know how real and personal God can be. And dramatic, too. All this happened within the hour I told Aunty Ay about my umbrella, and within minutes of my prayer for Grace.
I am learning, He doesn't care about what we lose, what we fracture, or what we think as much as what we learn, what we gain and how we grow as people. Today I learnt about the power of Grace, about its necessity to remove bitterness, and its immense power to unleash the infinite grace of God into our lives.
Grace-it means getting what we don't really deserve.
So that's the story of my rainbow umbrella. I brought it all the way to town today, and I couldn't stop beaming. I was visiting my favorite art gallery, and staring at the display windows of Kate Spade, wondering why on earth these handbags are so expensive, when a mime performer tapped my shoulder, asked for my rainbow umbrella and started performing in public with it. The mime performer took my umbrella, balanced it on her hand, tossed her black tophat upon it, then balanced it on her chin and demanded, in mock enthusiasm, for me to clap. I did. It was hilarious, and it made my day.
Thank you, God, for giving me my rainbow umbrella today. It made me so iridescently happy.
And thank You, for showing me what it means to extend grace to others, and for extending your unending, amazing grace to me, too.
Love You.
pic from llcheesell.tumblr.com".. lest anyone fall short of the grace of God,
lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble..."
-Hebrews 12:15.
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