Monkey Wrench Trials

Romans 8:18 -- "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us."

image: www.smallincave.com

Thin shadows played on the damp grass studded with dew drops and the moon peeked out from beyond the tree tops. It was beautiful - the deep night and the quiet. On the cold concrete patio, just beyond my chipped toe-nail polish grew a carpet of green clinging to the rough, uneven floor. I should really take the old nail polish off. I should really bleach the opaque moss growing just beyond the over-hang on the patio in a thick strait line. They both need maintenance and I've let them go too long.

The rest of the world was asleep - dreaming away the stress of the day. Letting their inner children play in gurgling creeks or scoring famous touch-downs through the fog laden joy of sleep. But I cannot close my eyes. I've tried. And as that wonderfully Floridian lightly salted air caught a stray strand of hair sticking out from the top of my head, my cheeks cooled where the tears trickled down. My head pounded and my rib cage ached from the days of sobbing. I am caught - mid-battle with God.

Things were not going according to plan. To quote Madeleine L'Engle:  I feel that "someone has altered the script. My lines have been changed. The other actors are shifting roles. They don't come on when they are expected to and they don't say the lines I've written..."

My world feels upside down. I think someone threw a stick into the moving spokes of my bicycle. Or - maybe it was a monkey wrench.

The bird feeders cast shadows on my knees and I can hear deer in the woods crunch the dry leaves down with otherwise quiet hooves. I have cast this pain on my Lord, Jesus. Or - I thought I had. The sobs leave me shaking again and I struggle to keep them from slipping through clenched teeth. I am so angry with God right now.

I can picture the problem in a metaphor: a perfect garden blooms to life in my head. The garden where I spent hours and hours tending, nurturing, shielding the tender infant shoots from foul whether so they could grow up big and strong. It was a gift. I'd devoted much of myself into the growing of it and was happy to present it - all bright and colorful - as an expression of love.  I taught the person for whom this gift was created how I'd grown it. What soils I used, how often I'd watered it, where the strengths and pretty blossoms were hidden as well as how to defend its weaknesses. But the gifted gardener wasn't listening to me anymore. Weeds were setting in. And where there was once so much beauty, so much vibrancy, petals had fallen into the dirt, turning brown and ugly. The gifted gardener is at a cross-roads. She has the opportunity to catch the weeds before the garden can be overcome. But it seems that her choices - her actions - are a fertilizer named trouble, and the weeds are popping up too fast to truly control.

I sigh. Somewhere in the neighborhood a dog starts barking and the deer are startled into a panic. I know they can't see me, but I freeze in the darkness anyway. And I wonder once again why the Lord has allowed the garden gift to go so sour. Why doesn't the gardener listen to me? Why can't she hear me speak the truth of God's Word? Wouldn't it be better to pull the weeds and choke them out before there is no taking the garden back from the brink?

I can't stop the sobbing and the gentle breeze has stopped. I peek up at the moon and sit still.

I consider the words of Paul. My pain is not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed through the grace of Jesus Christ. The truth is - it's just not my garden any more. I've done the things that I know God would have me do. I've planted the seeds and helped them grow. There is no more for me. The flowers are no longer mine. What I can do - is let go. I will don my full armor of Christ and pray with everything I have in me. I will encourage. I will help where I am lead. But the rest of it is in the hands of the gifted gardener. Has she green thumbs or no - it is hers to grow, now. I DO know, she is in the arms of Jesus.

God is always in control. And He is always good.

image: Kelly Babb Dalton

As the faintest glimmer of light starts to peek out from the horizon and the stars start to twinkle out one by one, I am reminded that my own flower bed is not always pristine. I occasionally let things get away from me. Like the chipped polish on my toes, there are times when the weeding gets forgotten once too often and repair is needed. And I know that with Jesus there is grace that surpasses all understanding.

No matter what is grown in the flower bed of the gifted gardener - I know that the bedrock of Jesus Christ grows beneath and there is nothing on this earth that can separate any of us from God's amazing love.