The Gospel According to the Wheelbarrow

     Kat and I had planned for weeks to take the train to New Orleans to visit with my daughter and her families of two sons, each with two children. What Kat and I didn't know was that we were destined to meet with Lee, hurricane Lee, that is. We arrived Friday afternoon and Lee began pounding on the Orleans backdoor later that night.  I dislike rain and wind as much as the next traveler but I always smile and say, "It's not raining inside!" However, in New Orleans, last weekend, it was a totally different story.
     While outside Lee was dropping water by the bathtubs every hour, I triggered a storm inside. The peace and quiet usually accompanying our visits was shattered.  Family ties throughout the neighborhood and across the city were strained to near breaking. My daughter was embarrassed, hurt and apologetic for words and actions that were directed toward her father. We managed the few days with a little ‘soft shoe’ and hushed exchanges.
     Though I remained calm outwardly, I brought some anger and other stuff home on the bottom of both shoes. The stuffing of my emotions resulted in a festering and bothersome sore on my soul. Saturday while working in the yard, I was reviewing all the ways in which I might seek retribution and revenge. I was relocating a compost pile, huffin’ and puffin' inside and out. I had just about narrowed down options for my plan of action which would surely bring down a hail of Hell, fire and damnation.
     As I heaped the last shovel full of 'rot' onto the top of my wheelbarrow, to my surprise, the wheelbarrow turned on its side dumping the major portion of my efforts and emotions back to the ground. It was just as clear to me that God was saying, "Stop! Dump all that stuff and let's do it My Way." Just as suddenly, all the anger, hurt and revenge drained out of my body and onto the ground beside the load I had just heaped up. I had to hear and understand that God was saying His way was better than my way. In the past twelve years He has been cleaning up and dumping out of my life stuff more rotten than I had in my wheelbarrow.
     I know that God is far more capable than man of cleaning up peoples lives. I know because He has done that in my life. He has done that in Kat's life. And in our marriage which He arranged He has blessed us, challenged us and used us more than I can ever share completely. It's a God thing which I can only experience not fully express.
     I left my feelings there in that heap of rot and began to experience a compassion for the focus of my emotions. I believe that I am beginning to see my fractured family as God sees them.  Not as they are but as they could be. 
     On the way to church this morning, I continued to share my new perspective with Kat and we both entered into a new found prayerful attitude of expectancy toward this should-be could-be loved one.  This individual is most definitely a God-sized project far beyond our comprehension or capabilities save the fact that Our Father had done much the same for each of us.
     Sometimes it is so very hard to give up absolute control of the universe to God. But, fortunately for all of us, He wrestles back control and reminds us who really is in charge.  God speaks into our lives simple messages like the one hidden in the rot of my backyard, ‘the gospel according to the wheelbarrow’.