Impossible
"Sing, 'Impossible', Mama!"
It's the same request I used to make of my own Mother before bed. I wish it wasn't so cliche to be a little girl who adored Cinderella. The Disney version sufficed for the first few years, but it wasn't until I watched the made for television Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella when I really came alive with the story. I would watch our grainy VHS tape over and over again, rewinding the part where Cinderella is broken hearted just to look up and see her fairy godmother's shimmering figure. This was where the magic happened. The, "Impossible". I reveled in the impossible.
I know there have been so many critics and theologians and pastors and spiritual directors who generally use the illustration that God is not Santa, or a Genie in a lamp, or your fairy Godmother. They say that to enforce the fact that it is the relationship between God and yourself that is the gift- the understanding of atonement and transference and deep, abiding love. And absolutely, they are right. They are. Except-
When I watched that scene as a child, I cried real tears at 5 seeing how tenderly the fairy godmother held Cinderella's cheek. How there was no judgement at Cinderella's final loss of hope, after holding on for so long. And finally, how her Godmother took ordinary, dirty, everyday things and transformed them into something regal and shining. Impossible.
We feel as though we are facing an enormous amount of impossible these last, few weeks. One night before bed after it was evident that I had been crying my girl held my cheek and suggested softly, "Let's sing Impossible, Mama." And in that moment I remembered the God of the universe who created all things for my good, the one in the stories of others and my own, the one who holds all things together, His strength and His whimsy and dare I say it, magical way of doing the impossible.
Always doing the impossible.