Best Laid Plans

Last May, the Tap began a partnership with the modular residence.  We started by helping to garden their outdoor space. Then, as the weather got cooler and the evenings darker, we were invited in for weekly art evenings - eventually expanding to two evenings a week just hanging out with these friends we had made over time, playing Jenga, sharing jokes and stories - our lives - over hot cocoa and cake.

Early in March, we began to excitedly vision this year’s garden with the staff and residents there.  I put a call-out for cuttings, and my friend Jennie quickly offered to split her raspberry and rhubarb plants.

But with the number of COVID cases climbing exponentially, we had to make the call to cancel our gardening visits [last week].  I felt sad and worried about the people we had built relationships with.  Our friends had been neglected, rejected, abandoned too many times in their lives.  What if they felt tossed aside once more?  That they weren’t worth enough for us to continue our visits?

In my angst, God gave me a picture: those bits of Jennie’s raspberry and rhubarb plants…being planted into the soil at the residence.  A piece of her home.  Being planted in their home.  It moved me with such love, joy and hope.  A glimpse of his Kingdom here on earth today.

God has planted something in that place.  He has been faithful throughout our friends’ lives even when others have not.  And he continues to be ever present even when we cannot be.

Things do not always turn out the way we plan them to.  Can we trust in God’s sovereign will over all things?  In surrender, our limitations will become opportunities for his revelation and our transformation.  New life will blossom out of the seeds of sacrifice – not just in the residence, but wherever they are planted – in our homes, our communities, all over the world.  And God’s glorious kingdom will be multiplied through small acts of love in the midst of seemingly great obstacles - even through the splitting of plants.

• How has God revealed his presence to you?
• What is a limitation you are experiencing or a plan you are mourning the loss of?  It can be COVID-related, or it can be something more personal.  Pray for God to give you the peace of surrendering it to him.  Ask him to transform it into blessing, for the glory of his name.
• What small acts of love can you bless others with today?

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!  Amen.” - Ephesians 3:20-21

Photo by Hugo Silva