God's Mysterious Ways

I wish I had the words to express all I am learning from Grizelda. But I am afraid that much of what I learn comes to me without words, and I can’t always adequately express what it is I know. But one thing that stands out in this experience is what I am learning about spiritual growth.

Confronting Grizelda has been a journey through dark, troubling places. But there are patterns in nature that teach us about the value of dark, troubling places. A caterpillar makes its own dark, tight place in which it endures for awhile and then miraculously comes out a butterfly. Imagine going from crawling laboriously along the ground to suddenly being able to fly! A flower struggles for weeks or months in the dark, deep soil before finally pushing up out of the ground to blossom and bask in the sunlight. A baby gestates for nine long months in the dark, depths of a mother’s womb—crowded, tight, waiting for the painful escape.

Likewise, enduring the worry, the stress, the pain, the unknown is a kind of dark, troubling experience that I know is changing me. Just as I can feel exercise make my body stronger, while traveling this journey I feel my spirit growing stronger. I am leaving behind old habits and old ways of negative thinking that limit and restrict me. I know I am being transformed and though I have a long, long way to go still, I am exhilarated by the knowledge that the Lord loves me enough to change me into something better. I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m bragging. That is not the intent. I'm far from what I eventually want to be. Instead I am trying to share my joy at what I am discovering about how the Lord works.

I am beginning to understand what the poet William Cowper meant when he wrote, “God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform.”