Last week was an exercise in pressing through a set of difficult circumstances without losing composure and holding on to one of my old stand by default passages, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God.” Romans 8:28. We all need default sayings that we can easily remember and fall back on when life changes from a mere fast moving stream to a a level five rapid.
Let me set the scene for you. My brother’s wife Judy, a wonderful woman whose life has blessed so many, departed this life for life with Jesus and we celebrated her earthly life on Tuesday night, February 11th. While I am not exaggerating when I call it a celebration, there’s no denying that it was a part of a mourning process for myself, my brother, their 9 year old son, Isaiah, their daughter Sharon and many more family & friends. Unlike the character in the proverb, I’ll momentarily share, I don’t think it’s healthy to both sorrow & celebrate at appropriate times.
In a way, I was looking forward to getting back to Joe’s house after the service where he and I could privately sit down and unpack all that had just happened. This didn’t unfold as I had imagined. We weren’t at his house more than thirty minutes when his septic tank backed up and flooded his house. I’ll spare you the gory details, but we worked till 2 AM, cleaning up the mess. By opening the release valve on the septic tank the next morning, we were able to complete the cleaning process and start washing the 3 or 4 loads of towels we had used to absorb the toxic water that had filled the bathrooms.
I forgot to mention it was freezing rain outside and in Atlanta, GA, freezing rain means frozen society. Nobody goes anywhere and I mean nobody. We called the police and to see if they could remove us from the house. In the words of President Bush, “not gonna happen, wouldn’t be prudent.” Well that’s actually not the worst news, that was coming. We went to bed Tuesday night thinking the worst was over. In retrospect that would be “not!” Wednesday morning, everything backed up again, only this time almost all the carpets in the house got soaked. Joe & I were barely keeping our sense of humor and if you know us; humor is the last thing we let go off. I am currently working on a deathbed speech that will leave everyone in stitches; that’s how committed I am to showing that “laughter doeth good.” Let’s get back to the crisis.
When I got up out of bed on Thursday morning and stepped into wet soppy carpet, I thought, “now this is a negative turn.” It was and it wasn’t. This prompted us to call the insurance company who said, “no problem, call a water extraction company. They will take care of everything.” Everything means bringing a pod, emptying the house, removing all flooring; removing and replacing sheet rock 2 feet from the floor. They will cover the cost of replace flooring, sheet rock & anything damaged by the moisture. This is a huge blessing because my brother was facing this enormous task of reorganizing his house, not it’s all been made very simple. Joe had told me weeks ago, the amount of stuff he needed to go through to declutter his house was overwhelming. Well, that problem is solved.
Now I am not saying that everything that happens to us is good, because that would be an insult to caring, intelligent people, but I am saying that we need to be more careful about reaching conclusions. I am learning to leave the mystery of why things happen in the hands of God a tad bit longer than I used too. It’s really hard for humans to just let causes go unexplained, but it’s one of the great secrets to living a life tranquility. The Bible calls it a “quiet spirit.”
Your beauty should … be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. 1 Peter 3:3-4 (NIV)
There is a Chinese Proverb that goes something like this…A farmer and his son had a beloved stallion who helped the family earn a living. One day, the horse ran away and their neighbors exclaimed, “Your horse ran away, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”A few days later, the horse returned home, leading a few wild mares back to the farm as well. The neighbors shouted out, “Your horse has returned, and brought several horses home with him. What great luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
Later that week, the farmer’s son was trying to break one of the mares and she threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. The villagers cried, “Your son broke his leg, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”A few weeks later, soldiers from the national army marched through town, recruiting all the able-bodied boys for the army. They did not take the farmer’s son, still recovering from his injury. Friends shouted, “Your boy is spared, what tremendous luck!” To which the farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
Some people use this story to illustrate the point that we should never spike the ball in celebration, nor should we ever declare some event in our life us utterly bad. I don’t look at it that way. I believe it’s okay to call things as you see them. It’s a very disconcerting habit to always be playing down everyone’s responses of “great!” or “gross.” Commiserating is one way we develop community and share life. What the little story of the Chinese farmer says to me is, “give God time and he’ll weave your tragedy into a triumph. Called me naïve, but I still believe that with God in the equation, we’ll see “every detail in our lives is worked into something good.” Romans 8:28 (MSG)
