I have a plethora of friends, children, and grandchildren I love, and they love me back and am blessed with the fact that our 94-year-old mother is still with us. I have two places that give me the opportunity to meet and enjoy people - and pay me for that. I enjoy facilitating a women's Bible study and playing games with some widows and widowers once a month. Oh, and sometimes I get to serve communion in one of our worship services.
Everything is perfect, right?Most of the time. But sometimes everything seems to get tangled up.
Hurricane Matthew took down three trees in my back yard. Once they were removed, I saw something that I thought was very ugly.
There were vines hanging from the remaining trees. And they were all tangled up
"That's the way I feel," I told my daughter. "I feel like everything in my life is just all tangled up."
This is clearly just a metaphor. But somehow I kept thinking if those vines were removed I would be more at peace.
"Little foxes spoil the vines." How many times has my mother said that to me? What does it mean - even the smallest things add up to make something bigger - at least in our minds.
I talked with friends; I prayed; I read. I looked for answers. Something was hindering me. It wasn't one thing - it was a lot of little things.
I also told my brother-in-law, Robert, that the vines were really bothering me. And I just knew that once those vines were pulled my life would also be "untangled.
And as for the tangled up feeling that I was experiencing. The talks, prayer, and rearranging of a few parts of my life have done the same thing for me personally that Robert and Orlando did for my back yard.
Unfortunately, and much to Orlando's disappointment, the grass we planted is not doing very well Or well, maybe next year. We'll have to keep working on it - just like I'll have to keep talking, reading and praying so that I don't get tangled up again.
May your life be filled with enough sunshine
to make you appreciate the shadows
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