My husband's at work. Our little ones, toddlers and pre-school age, are running around in the backyard, playing tag, running behind the shed to hide. I keep an eye on them as I work, calling to them not to go in the neighbors' yards, listening for their giggles.
I pull the rake, loaded with leaves, down each section of the lawn until that section of lawn is clear and I've made a neat leaf pile at the end. Soon, the edge of the lawn is covered with several leaf piles in a row.
I think as I rake - how I wish that I could organize my problems and worries, as numerous as these leaves, into such neat little, manageable piles!
When I'm finished and my whole back lawn is clear and leaf-free, I drag the small piles into one large, towering pile, ready for me to load into black bags for the garbage collection.
I lean on the sturdy rake, near our neighbor's huge backyard tree, resting my aching back before I load up those black bags. Suddenly a strong breeze comes out of nowhere, shaking the branches on my neighbor's tree, and more leaves drift down to newly re-cover my lawn. Just like the new, unknown family problems that seem to arrive daily. The ones I've come to dread.
I sag against the rake. I can never gather all these leaves. They'll just keep coming until Winter. And if the snow comes first, I'll sure have a messy pile to clean up in the Spring! I'll have to rake again, today or tomorrow, and fill another black bag.....
Small figures streak past me; sudden shouts erupt behind me. I swivel around. My small children have discovered the so-carefully-arranged big leaf pile! Whooping and stomping, and kicking, and jumping into it, they scatter my huge leaf pile to Kingdom Come! I feel exhausted. This sudden leaf mess is just like my life. Totally uncontrollable.
But then I start to laugh. I can't keep myself from laughing at their sheer exuberance, the joy they're taking and making in a simple pile of leaves. The new patterns they're creating. God breaks through my blindness. Life reveals itself, filled with the wonder of a child.
Our daily living is often like raking leaves. We plod along, hour by hour, minute by minute, trying to get the job done, make the problems manageable, clear another piece of the lawn of our life. As if we're in charge.
If we faithfully listen, we'll hear God whispering to us to lean on the support of our Father, Who is sturdier than any rake, and able to help us lift the heavy weight of our accumulated burden of problems or fears.
If we're aware, we'll feel constant sunlight on our back, - the Son of God, Jesus our Sun, Who warms us, eases us. He is with us, our steady Sunlight, during every minute of our labors - unless our pride tilts us away from Him. Jesus reminds us we're a Child of Light, His Light that will accompany us into the Unknown - the cold darkness of Winter.
If we have Faith, we'll know that the Holy Spirit, the creative, exuberant Wind, plays daily in the huge leaf pile of our problems and worries. We may not see the One Who is Wisdom. But we discover how unpredictable the Holy Spirit is. How She - Wisdom - blows where She wills.
Daily we'll see the pile of our problems being swirled and re-formed by the Spirit's creative Power. A problem that yesterday seemed huge and unsolvable has suddenly blown away. Or a huge problem is lifted up on the Wind of the Holy Spirit and when it falls down upon us again, it is accompanied by a Wind-Fall of Grace, an unaccountable Gust of joy.
I've found that, surrounded by the Community of the Holy Trinity, I can live my life with inner peace, regardless of my labor, regardless of my problems that continually appear like unexpected falling leaves. I am protected by my Mighty God's Power. All is in God's Hands. He is in charge of both the Raking and the Leaves.
So, freed from fear, I can sit down in a pile of leaves with my laughing children, laughing with them, together swirling around the leaves that cover our jackets and pants and stick in our hair. Later I can rake the leaves all up again. Right now, I'll just rest and play. Play with my precious children. Play with the Holy Spirit.
"Feed your fears and your faith will starve. Feed your faith and your fears will"
- Max Lucado