Living with April Showers, May Flowers, and Fertilizer

Earlier today I was driving in a light rain down a road called Garden Highway. It's one of the few streets with a fitting name; it winds through beautiful stretches of orchards and agriculture. While driving through the drizzle I was enjoying looking at the gorgeous trees covered with bright pink blossoms and all the flowers peeking their heads out of winter-worn flower beds. I thought how the brightly colored blooms seemed to not fit with the darkened grey sky; their beauty deserved the rays of sunshine classic of springtime postcards and computer screen savers. While I personally enjoy rainy days and puddles and mud, I thought of how many people complain when it rains and are miserable on days like this; I always feel they are missing out on the beauty of a rainy day. However, I've yet to meet a person who doesn't like spring blooms and trees covered in blossoms and the symphony of returning songbirds chorusing in their backyard! (Not counting people with bad seasonal allergies, that is - and even they enjoy the beauty if it weren't for the sneezing.)

But then something struck me -- while we all love the days and seasons in our lives that are full of proverbial flowers and songbirds, very few of us are thankful for the storms in life that make those lovely days possible! Think about it - as soon as any kind of hard time hits us or someone we love, what is the first thing we do? If we are praying people, then we call all our friends to pray hard for this person that their affliction is lifted. "Lord, please make them healthy - restore their job - heal their marriage - remove the trouble with their kids ---- make the hard times go away." If we aren't praying people, then we send them well wishes and healing energy and loving thoughts. We all commiserate with our friends and tell them we would take this away from them if we possibly could.

But should we?

What if we prayed that there were no dreary, rainy days in spring? Where would the flowers be? Where would the harvest be?

When there are times without rain, what do we have to do? What if there's no natural nutrients or fertilizer? Well, we have to pipe in the rain artificially. We turn on the sprinklers and apply the store-bought fertilizer. And the longer we go without rain, the more we have to turn to artificial means to hope for growth. But even with these artificial means, if the rain is absent long enough - if the drought is severe enough - then eventually even our irrigation channels will run dry. (In fact, for some people it requires a drought for them to appreciate the rain.) And life is no different. When I think about it, when growth is not happening naturally -- through mentoring, for example, where the people who are more mature have taken the younger under their wings and helped them grow by investing in their lives and teaching them day by day -- then artificial means have to be employed. Bring on the self-help books - the intellectual studies about how to build character, the workbooks about how to "be the best you you can be."

I don't know about you, but when I look back on my life it is almost solely in times of trial that I have really grown - that's when I have learned anything of substance, whether it's about myself or God or others. Very, very rarely does monumental growth happen for me when life is hunky-dorey. What about you? How much do your muscles grow when they are at rest? Don't they require resistance to grow? And from what I understand, the muscles have to tear ever so slightly in order to grow stronger. Where's the strongest part of a bone? Isn't it where was once broken and has since healed? The strongest part of a piece of metal is where it was soldered or welded. Unless, of course, the welding was done poorly, or the bone healed improperly. When there is trial and we try to heal artificially, instead of becoming the strongest point, it instead becomes the weakest point.

So how do I know whether or not the hardship is precisely what is needed to strengthen me? What if all our prayers were answered and every hardship was lifted - where would that leave us?

If it weren't for the hard times and afflictions in life, the rubber would never meet the road. The gold would never be refined. And who wants gold filled with impurities? We all want to be pure gold, but we never want to be refined. Often times the best possible thing that could happen in our lives is a healthy dose of rain and fertilizer.

So my mindset is changing. Instead of praying for every hardship to be lifted and for every refiner's fire to be snuffed out, I instead am learning to pray for perseverance, for faith, and for the wisdom to recognize the lessons in the trial facing me. In other words:

And because I have a hope that extends far beyond my circumstances -- far beyond this life, I can say from my heart, "[W]e rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit..." and therefore: "This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life. It is good for me that I was afflicted -- in faithfulness you have afflicted me."  

Note: While I was in the process of writing this post, a friend unknowingly caught me in my own trap! I had posted in a Facebook thread about how much I dislike the wind, and this was my dear friend's comment: "[I'm] not exactly a fan of the wind either. However, I find it interesting that the wind can help scatter seed in the windy season even if I think that the wind is frustrating at times. Likewise, when I get frustrated about spreading God's word to people thinking that my breath might be wasted and no one is listening, it helps to realize that seed is being scattered in the process and He knows where it will fall." I am so grateful for friends who help put things in perspective for me!