the old mango tree

yesterday i sat under a giant old mango tree.  it was during church- we were outside, there were tents and chairs and lots of people and music and microphones and i just sat under that tree and it let it speak to me.  it was so beautiful and full.  it was filled with things that maybe didn't belong, but were now there.  it was filled with history and change and time and allowance. this tree held and supported things - other plants, other life forms, other things that needed a place- and this tree had opened her arms.  there were ferns and long dangly tentacled things and large cauliflower type plants and mosses and lichen.  there were her own leaves, full and shade giving. her bark peeled and her trunk had barbed wire embedded, helping to hold up a fence.  she no longer produces mangos, but she sustains, she takes on, she holds life she didn't bear, life that needed a space to be. it spoke to me about evolution and unexpected and taking what comes and with being okay.

we often get in life what we didn't sign up for. we are often given things we didn't want or think we'd be faced with.  things grow in us and on us that aren't always part of our vision. and this can be hard and frustrating and time can be spent fighting it, but why? because we get what we get-whether we think we deserve it or not - whether we think we can handle it or not. no one signs up for excessive loss or pain or illness or handicapped children or divorce.  but these things are part of our story.  we all have a story and all stories have hardness and challenge- all of them.

last night i went to womens fellowship. we are looking at the different names of God and last night was Jehovah Jireh - Jehovah as provider. this name for God is spoken by Abraham after God asks him to sacrifice his son Isaac but then at the last minute, provides a ram instead. there are certain words in the english language that i strongly dislike the sound of and jireh is one of them, (so is orthodontia) but i do love the words for God as a provider.  because it's true.  because i know this.  because i have lived in this provision. 

but. it's often easier for me to feel the provision in those big 'i didn't sign up for this' moments. it can be harder for me to remember the provision in all the other moments- those which make up my days. i tend to be able to trust Him when it's big and dramatic, but all the little things, the things that i think i may actually be able to handle on my own- that is when i forget the provision.  it's the creeping small nagging needs that i don't remember to lay at the table. that i convince myself i can manage. but those are the ones that eat at my joy. 

provision also requires us to think about need and want.  when i trust in the provision of God, i trust that provision will be sometimes 'above and beyond what i can ask or imagine', and most of the time it will be 'enough'.  it will be what is needed.  and it will often show up at the very last minute.  for abraham, God showed up when isaac is tied to the firewood. God provided that ram.  i think if i were abraham i would be have already swapped isaac out for a worm.  "oh look son, God has provided this nice worm for us. " i would say with dirt under my nails from frantically digging, "you can get up off of that alter, i'm sure this will be fine." my guess is that God would have just shaken her head and let it go.  i don't think i, or isaac would have been struck down by lighting. i think we would have just missed out on the incredible, indescribable provision, and the relationship that comes from that level of trust and faith. we would have gone down that mountain, knowing that our worm, was not the point.  knowing inside, that somehow we'd missed it.  we got the vanilla version of experiencing God, when we could have had new york super fudge chunk.

i wonder how many times i miss the grandeur because i don't fully trust.  i get up the mountain and i can't stop digging for my own version of meeting the need.  how many times do i miss out on the deep life changing provision of God?

the thing is, we can take what comes our way when we know of the provision, when we can not just trust in it, but rest in it.  then we can open our arms like the branches of that old mango tree and welcome what is- even in it's unexpectedness, it's undesirability.  the promise is that it will be okay.  it will be enough. and if we can wait, if we can wait expectantly, patiently, trustingly, we will be amazed.