Most Sunday evenings, after all is done at the church, I come home to a task that I find quite restful and satisfying - I load the wood rack in our back room full of wood we will use in the coming week to heat our home. There is something very special about wood heat that very little else compares to.To load the rack, I have my handy dandy wheel barrow and a good set of gloves. I take the empty wheel barrow and walk to the large wood pile about 50 yards from our back door. After setting the barrow down, I threw back the vinyl cover protecting the wood from the elements, and i begin to load pieces of the pile into the barrow.
Traditionally it will take about 4 or 5 trip with the barrow to fill the rack completely. The first load, was a pretty weak load! I mean, that i didn't stake it well and actually wasn't able to load many pieces onto it. The pieces were irregular and din't fit well together. They had odd shapes and I really don't care for wood that is odd - give me good old uniform everyday of the week! The next loads went better. I discovered ways to load the irregular pieces together in order to load more wood on the barrow. The second load was huge, the third and the fourth.
Now my thought was this - no matter if the load was light or heavy, well loaded and well fitted, or poorly loaded and irregularly fitted - all of the loads got to there destination. Sometimes we travel pretty. And sometimes we travel ugly, or multiple points in between. the point is that we achieve our destination. Sometimes as a Pastor I really struggle with people who don't fit well into my barrow.
How do you handle the irregular? Do you see the irregular as an opportunity to grow and learn, to discover the new and creative?
My prayer for you this week is that you will learn to love and appreciate all that God provides for you - regular and even irregular. . . .
