There was a man in my college photography class who taught us how to capture a beautiful shot from anywhere. “Zoom in,” he said, “It’s about focus.” When he propped his photo up on our critique board, I saw a shadowed arch, eye-catching in its imperfection flowing through a gray sea. I didn’t think crack in a sidewalk until he told us that’s what it was.

I’m not sure what got me thinking about this seventeen-year-old memory; maybe some of you can relate, but when you become a parent, focusing on any single thing becomes folklore. A crack in the sidewalk becomes a collection point for Cheerios overflowing beyond the crevice— milk and all— onto my freshly mopped floor.

Maybe it’s my son with the indeterminate illness, and my friend with the cancer diagnosis. The hard things like to come at once, so how do we manage to focus on a single beautiful thing amidst cold, hard reality?

If Peter had kept his eyes on Jesus, his feet would not have slipped through the water. He saw the storm, the waves–he even suspected Jesus was a ghost. But the few moments he focused on the Lord, he got his miracle—one that’s been documented to help us through every one of our hard seasons. An old reminder of what could be.

Jesus traveled with a team—I’m thinking of all of you right now. Let’s climb inside this boat together and fix our eyes on our King.