Right this moment, as I am writing this (though not while you are reading it!), I am far from home. I recently wrote of the anxiety of waiting for my passport to come through so I could fly to Toronto. I was contracted to teach a Doctor of Ministry course at Tyndale University; would I be able to get there? Many of my friends and colleagues, and even my students, knew of the situation and were praying for me — especially, of course, the good folks at Tyndale. They reassured me that it was possible for me to teach the course via livestream if necessary. It helped to know that there was a Plan B. But everyone was hoping we wouldn’t have to resort to it.

Thankfully, the passport came through with a mere two days to spare, so here I am, in my room at Tyndale. The weather has mostly been overcast; as I look out the window, I can see the Toronto skyline, but only hazily. The intensive one-week class is now over, and I return home tomorrow. I’m tired, still not quite fully acclimated to this time zone. But I feel blessed to have been here.

Not that the trip has been without its odd challenges. I arrived in Toronto to find I had no cell service, so couldn’t text until I reached Tyndale and logged into their WiFi. Then, on the morning of the first session, before heading down to the classroom, I was cleaning my glasses with a damp towel, just as I do every morning. But this time, the frame snapped in my hands, severing the lenses from each other.

I hurriedly texted the professor, a friend and former student of mine, who had invited me to Tyndale in the first place and was slated to introduce me to my students. Could she bring some Super Glue and tape to the classroom? There, others labored over my glasses while I squinted my way through setting up my laptop for the lecture — only to find that my presentation remote wasn’t working. Another professor ran to find some fresh batteries, but they didn’t help; the remote had simply died. Finito. Kaput.

Mind you, I have had both the glasses and the remote since well before the pandemic — five to six years at least. And both of them decided to break down on the same morning, within an hour of each other, when I was out of the country, ready to begin teaching a class.

Was God trying to tell me something?

The Super Glue didn’t take; there wasn’t enough surface to glue. So for the whole of the first day, my glasses were held together with nothing but Scotch tape. Not surprisingly, the patch job didn’t last, and on the second morning the glasses had to be fixed again. Four guys huddled over them like a surgical team, with one of the students being lead surgeon. You can see the result in the picture to the right. This time, they used twice as much tape — and a piece of wood cut from a coffee stirrer. It worked; the glasses have been holding together for four days now, and hopefully, I’ll be able to make it all the way home with them intact.

Naturally, though, I look utterly ridiculous. I half expect U. S. Customs to refuse to let me back into the country.

Near the end of the course, when it came time to take a class picture, I suggested that I might take my glasses off. But the students, with good humor, revolted. No way, they protested. I had to wear them. It was one of the things they would remember about the class. It had become part of their story.

And now, it was an inescapable part of mine, digitally preserved for posterity.

There’s a part of me that wants the smoother journey and the more dignified tale: Visiting Professor Captivates Students with Scintillating and Brilliant Lectures. Instead, my picture belongs in the dictionary next to the word “geek.” This part of me, the one that wanted to take my glasses off for the picture, is embarrassed to look the way I do.

But the rest of me is ready to lean into the hilarity, the sheer improbability of it all: Let’s just go with it. I have to admit, it’s a much better story.

So was God trying to tell me something through this whole process? The passport saga, the broken glasses, all the little things that didn’t go as planned? Maybe. But whether God intended it or not, here’s my takeaway: It’s not about you.

Because the funny thing is, when I accept that I look ridiculous and there’s nothing I can do about it, I no longer have an image to protect, and am more free to be myself. That’s the person God called to be here in the first place, a person more ready to take what comes and be fully present to God and others.