I stomped around for most of the morning, feeling restless and resentful. Waiting is the worst. Working towards things that feel like they may never actually come to fruition is vulnerable and scary. It is taking too long. I was feeling frustrated and annoyed, and a bit angry with God, I came to realize. It is hard to wait, though I feel like that is what God is asking me to do, again and again. Wait, look, keep watch, it is coming. But when? How long must I wait? I Take one more tiny step, and then another one. I felt my inner cranky kid complaining “it’s taking forever! We’ll never get there!” I took my bad attitude, made my lunch, and went to sit down at my grandparent’s beautiful old dining room table when something caught my eye.
At first, all I noticed was the vase full of dying holiday boughs that I had picked from my parent’s property before Christmas. It was starting to shed needles, and the holly had that crisp look like it had been baked in an oven for a bit too long. Mold was starting to grow along the stems, and the water looked dingy and awful. It was far past time for me to chuck the whole thing in the compost. But then I saw something else. The red twigs from the dogwood that I trimmed from the shrubs in the swamp had started to put out new leaves. Tiny, delicate green leaves unfolding persistently and unobtrusively right in front of me.
I laughed out loud, startled by how on-the-nose this was for me. New life finding its way in unlikely circumstances? Not much for subtlety today, huh God? I would like to say that this snapped me out of my funk, bringing me back into a deep sense of trust that God is at work, that the things that I am working so hard for may still come to fruition, that God’s timing is good even when it is perplexing. But I confess, I was still grumpy. I was simply now the grumpy possessor of some surprising budding sticks, reminding me about a hope that I keep losing my grip on. It is all well and good to know that beautiful new things can come forth even in unpropitious circumstances. It is nice to hear reassurance of any variety that there is hope, that goodness is on its way. That’s genuinely nice. But waiting is still waiting, and I confess that my inner cranky kid was not satisfied by mere sticks with a cool magic trick.
But I am hopeful that maybe I can make a little extra room for my dogwood companions to grow and serve as a witness for me, even while I continue to hurl my invectives about God’s apparent inability to read a calendar. Maybe these tiny leaves can hold onto that sense of promise for me while I let my anger and irritation flow. I’m sure my sense of hope and promise will circle back around. I can already feel it nudging its way closer as I write this. But for now, I am using the words of a rather hopeful psalm to yell at God just a little bit:
“Restore our fortunes, Lord,
like streams in the Negev,” I shout.
Those who sow with tears
will reap with songs of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with them.
The words feel frustrated and confrontational to me today, but that is a form of hope too, isn’t it? “You said and I’m holding you to it!” Maybe that’s what those little leaves are doing after all, using their inner capacity for growth no matter what, shaking their tiny fists at the sky.
Wellspring 