Lately I have been considering the disappointments in my life and how I live in hope or demand control and change.
I’ve come to God as a victim child, begging, pleading, throwing a variety of emotional tantrums and then sulking, demanding that God rewrite the chapters of my life to my satisfaction. My longings haven’t been wrong, but my demands to God and attempts at control to contain the pain of disappointment have been ugly. Instead of dancing through my disappointments wearing my pink ballet slippers and trusting God, I’ve stomped around in combat boots covered with manure, stinking in my contempt.
When I glide softly in my pink ballet slippers, God offers sweet moments of grace and hope. There have been moments in the recent months of my life when God has given me more than I asked for or dreamed could be for me. Are some of my present circumstances what I long for? No. But God has offered me grace, hope and opportunities to be fulfilled elsewhere.
As I travel, I gather whatever nature has to offer. I have heart shaped rocks from Normandy Beach, stones from Paris, beach glass from Switzerland, shells from the North Sea in Amsterdan, and drift wood and shells from the beaches here in the US. Two of my prize shells are a sand dollar and star fish. I have found a few sand dollars and only one tiny star fish. As I walked the Florida beach this past March, several people stopped me to say I wouldn’t find any nice shells. I kept walking, asking God to speak to me about the disappointments in my life.
I hadn’t gone far when I picked up broken sand dollar. I continued to find many broken pieces of sand dollars. OK – God I’ve get it. You are using these sand dollars to represent the broken places of my life. Then you will help me find a whole sand dollar, totally intact to represent the places in my story where you have taken my broken pieces of disappointment and made them whole.
I continued to find broken pieces of sand dollars but not a whole one. I was beginning to wonder if I had misunderstood the conclusion to this story God was showing me.
Then my eyes caught something in the water. Could it be? Yes – a starfish. I scooped it up, put in my bucket and smiled. God had something even better in mind for me than I had hoped. Not a whole sand dollar, but a prized star fish, only the second one I’ve ever found. But wait, was that? Yes, another star fish. God was blessing me beyond what I could have asked for and my smile turned to a chuckle. As I walked along basking in how God had written the ending of this story, I looked down and there was yet another star fish! I had asked God for a whole sand dollar and He answered with three star fish.
As I continue to walk this earthly story for God, I purpose to live in my reality, believing that the exact circumstances and disappointments I have today are the ones God has planned for me and that through them He is growing me to be the woman He has called for the purposes He has planned just for me. Today I will live with hope and faith.
