Our farmhouse paradise
in Belton
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”
Proverbs 13:12
A little over a year ago, Larry and
I moved out of our home of sixteen years into a rent house. It would be an understatement to say we are
enjoying our stay in this location. In
fact, we believe it was picked out expressly for us and handed to us by no less
that God Himself. It is a big, old roomy farm house with a warm and charming character
surrounded by dozens of big oak trees that serve as a natural bird
sanctuary. Every morning we sit on our
screened-in front porch and enjoy the vast array of feathered carolers singing
cheery hymns to welcome the day. There are cardinals, chickadees, titmice, blue
jays, woodpeckers, sparrows, finches, hummingbirds, and most rare of all, a
family of painted buntings.
But recently the wildly colorful male
bunting disappeared, and I can’t quit looking for him. Every time I go outside or even look through
a window, I am searching, relentlessly scouring the earth for a glimpse of my
missing pied wonder.
Today it hit me that this kind of
focused searching belies something amiss in my spirit, a black smudge on my
soul. For here, as they have always
been, are the cardinals, the titmice, the hummingbirds and all the other
delightful creatures wooing me constantly with their unique songs and
personalities. I haven’t cared about
this. I haven’t even noticed. I haven’t been paying attention.
Probably the birds don’t care that I
haven’t noticed them. The Lord cares
though, I’m sure. Surely He wishes I
would not be so blasé or petulant in the face of His blessings just because I
can’t have the one specific blessing I have ordered up for
this season.
But there is something even worse
than blindly receiving the blessing of winged creatures in my yard…
I have been doing the same thing
with my husband. Lately I have been on a dedicated quest to
improve our communication and deepen the intimacy of our marriage. As I told Larry, there are some aspects of
our life together that have taken up residence on the east shores of the Jordan,
as did some of the patriarchs of long ago.
Remember them? They asked Moses
if they might reside on the east of the river since they were shepherds and
there was good land of sheep there.
“Okay,” Moses said. “You go in
and help us clear the land of the heathens, and then you can go back over there
and live.” And they did. And there they survived and subsisted. But that was not the Promised Land God had
prepared for them. That was not the land
of milk and honey. So I asked Larry if
we might work on getting over to the West in some or our ways. Might we still, even after forty years,
change our minds, break camp over here in the east, and enter into the Promised
Land?
I was pretty sure I knew some of
what it would take to get this thing done, and I shared fairly explicitly with
him what those changes consisted of. He left on his job with the letter in hand
for two-and-a-half weeks, hopefully to ponder and figure out how to do what it
might take to help our move to happen.
When he
returned, I watched expectantly for the thing I so desperately wanted to
see. I peered with ultra-focused eyes
and sniffed the air constantly on the prowl for the change I dreamed of. To tell the truth, though, I couldn’t see
much difference. I asked him if he had
thought about my letter, and he replied, “Yes.
I have read it several times. I
keep it in my Bible. Can’t you
tell?” What a surprise to me that was
since no, the thing I was looking for
was really nowhere in sight.
And then a few days later, I
discovered my mistake with the bunting. It
was a word from the Lord . The parable
bore into my heart with precision. The
Word of God had come to me “sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrat[ing]
even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; judg[ing]the thoughts and
attitudes of [my]heart.” The next verse
tells us that “nothing is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before
the eyes of Him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:12-13). God had seen
that I was blindly and ungratefully receiving the blessings of a contrite,
dedicated man who was wonderful in so many ways just because I was on a mad,
obsessive search for only one
attribute. All the sweet qualities he
had always displayed plus some new ones were there before me to bless me, but
the painted bunting I was looking for wasn’t visible so I could see nothing but
its absence.
Somehow we have to learn to catch
ourselves when we begin focusing on what is missing rather than what is
present. This is not to say we shouldn’t
work on improving and adding to what’s already there. It’s just a gentle reminder to those of you
who easily fall into obsessing (you know
who you are!) that when we fail to give credit where credit is due, and
when we fail to soften and widen our narrow, sharp, pinpointed focus, we could
easily be distinguishing hope in someone we love. It happens to kids when parents look at the
report card with six A’s and one B and respond, “What happened in this subject?” It happens with spouses who forget to notice
or speak words of appreciation for forty years of good meals on the table or
twelve-hour workdays to pay for the groceries and the air conditioning.
The Proverb
says that when we lose hope, our hearts grow sick. Sometimes the hope of pleasing another grows
dim, and we doubt we can ever get it right.
We become heartsick.
But getting it right is worth it,
even if it has taken years to figure out how; it becomes “a longing fulfilled”;
“a tree of life.” A tree! What an apt
metaphor to describe a blessing-giver for not only now but for generations to
come.
But really, I must go. I’ve got a husband who needs a letter of
encouragement and a bunch of sparrows in the front yard that need feeding.
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