Not a one of us “gets it right” all of the time, do we? We all err, and we all fall short. That is a fact of life. But sometimes we forget our limitations and God’s limitlessness. When things go “wrong” (by our definition) and we choose to play the blame game, we can pass judgment on God and ourselves.

For a few years, I had opportunity to assist local families, who were purchasing Habitat for Humanity (HFH) homes, to acquire the basic furnishings that they needed for their homes (a service that is not part of the HFH program). My role became that of intermediary, matching families’ needs with available donations.

Family after family, I witnessed God’s faithfulness in His provision to meet or exceed each and every need. Time after time, every “T” on the checklist of the family’s needs would be crossed and every “i” dotted, as exactly the right items arrived without duplication.  I, among others, amazed by what God had done in the past, came to expect (trust) God to simply fulfill “our” plan for each new family.

Then came the test. Who did I really trust, and in whose plan was I really operating?

The test centered around the bedroom decor of one young girl, who dreamed of a room containing blues, purples and horses. The request from her heart seemed simple enough. But as time passed, not a single appropriate item containing blue, purple or horses arrived. As the family’s move-in day approached, my faith in God’s provision began wavering, and I began outlining possible plans in my head regarding what I could “do” to “remedy” the situation. The plan that unfolded, however, was definitely not mine.

One day, an hour from home, I suddenly remembered that I needed to make a quick purchase before going home. So my husband pulled into the parking lot of a Walmart store that was unfamiliar to us, and I darted inside the store. As I hurried down an aisle toward my destination, a bolt of fabric sitting atop a pile of other fabrics caught my eye. Printed on the fabric were large stars and galloping horses on a bold background that contained blue and purple.

The fabric was not one that I would have immediately considered for a young girl, but it fit the bill. Hesitating for only a split second, I snatched up the bolt, thinking that “my” problem was solved. But my delight was diminished when I realized that there was only enough fabric on the bolt to make simple window treatments and, possibly, a pillow sham. We would still need a coordinating bed cover. But having a multitude of colors in the fabric from which to choose, the “problem” seemed to be over. I was elated. Surely we would receive a bed covering of one matching color or another.

But we didn’t. In the short time that remained before move-in day, which was the week before Christmas, the only bedspread that arrived was a pink floral, a decidedly “no match.” To make matters worse, in the busyness of the Christmas season, I put off sewing the window treatments and pillow sham until the night before they were needed. That evening, as I began to sew, my sewing machine jammed and would not be righted. I couldn’t sew a thing.

Immediately, I began berating myself, second-guessing my apparently poor decisions. Why had I not been more proactive in obtaining the simple items that the girl had requested? Why had I not at least done the sewing earlier, so that I would have something to offer the girl? I was responsible (as I saw it) for a little girl’s disappointment that she did not yet know existed. But I knew it, and I felt horrible.

The following day, the girl’s mother was all smiles as she and I first arranged her other daughter’s room. We made the bed, hung curtains and added a few special touches, all in the theme and color that had been both requested and donated. God had provided, just as I had seen Him do so many times previously.

Why, then, was I empty-handed regarding the other girl’s dream? Why had God not shown up?

I showed the horse fabric to the girl’s mother and confessed my not having anything to offer her daughter, except for the pink floral spread. As we smoothed the spread over the bed, the girl’s mother tried to console me. But as I looked at the empty windows, my heart sank even more. I felt only guilt and shame. I could not undo the “mess” that I had made. We finished the room, working with the little that we had, and then we headed to the kitchen to unpack boxes.

Shortly thereafter, an aunt and uncle of the family arrived to place Christmas presents under the tree that stood in the living room. While they were there, the girl’s mother gave the aunt and uncle a quick tour of the home, and then they departed, leaving us to finish unpacking.

As we worked, the girl’s mother (still bubbling with the excitement of being a first-time homeowner) told me that the aunt had been surprised to see the pink floral bedspread. Thinking that the girl needed a bed covering, the aunt had purchased one for the girl for Christmas, and it was now sitting under the tree. The aunt was concerned that her gift would be neither needed nor wanted. But the girl’s mother reassured the aunt to the contrary, explaining that the pink floral spread was only temporary.

Now that the aunt was gone, the girl’s mother (and I) couldn’t wait to peek in the package containing the bed covering. A twinge of hope arose in me that maybe––just maybe-–-my negligence could still be redeemed in some small way. If we were “lucky,” the new bedding would coordinate with the horse fabric.

But those who think that they need luck, don’t know God.

Not yet surrendered to that truth, I held my breath as the girl’s mother carefully pulled back the tape and unfolded the paper on one end of the package. Then, together, we bent over to peer inside the wrapping. Staring back at us were the eyes of galloping horses on a background of blue and purple. The comforter was an exact match to the fabric that I had purchased! Our jaws dropped in astonishment as we looked at the gift and then at each other. Unable to contain our excitement, we jumped up and down with joy.

Neither the girl nor her desire had ever been forgotten by God, and the fulfillment of her dream had never been up to me. I had done my part in God’s plan––no more and no less, exactly as He had intended, without me even being aware that I was doing so. The only real “problem” that had existed was my doubt of God, thinking that the outcome depended upon me alone.

While I would have been satisfied with (make that “proud of”) my sewing handiwork and a stranger’s donation, God had something much more meaningful to give to the girl through her aunt, who loved her. Nothing that either I nor any other stranger could have offered would have measured up to that. My role and my offering were secondary to the aunt’s, as they should have been. Yet God had gifted me with the opportunity to participate in helping to make the girl’s dream come true, giving me delight in doing so.

The true gift, as God had planned, would be revealed on Christmas morning, delivered in the way that God had always intended for it to be delivered:  in love. The gift, as all gifts should, would stand as a reminder of God’s eternal love for each individual, the love with which He wrapped the Gift of His Son on that first Christmas morning long ago, enabling each of us to receive His love that our hearts so desire.

God is truly the God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3), letting us know that we are each individually important to and loved by Him. He provides us with far more than the necessities of life, delivering comforts in ways that far surpass our expectations. God is always present, always providing, always caring. He is just as concerned with and involved in the details of our lives as He is in the big picture.

My shortcomings (as I tend to view them) aren’t always what they seem to me to be. God can and does use me exactly as I am, fulfilling His Plan, His Way, in His Time.

And that gives me comfort, no matter what happens.

God is the ultimate Comforter.

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“And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.”  (2 Corinthians 1:7)

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THOUGHTS ON “THE LESSON OF THE COMFORTER”

Jerry on February 16, 2013 at 3:25 pm said:  “Very nice. I think we all “operate” as you described, and if we do our best, and then have faith in God, things turn out so well. Thanks for sharing.”

DeBorah on February 15, 2013 at 1:57 pm said:  “I’m soooo very glad Cathy Butler shared this with me…this is beautiful…I haven’t read a devotional that held my attention like this in a long time. It was a practical, down-to-earth lesson in the love of OUR FATHER for HIS children! Thank you and God bless.”

Several years ago, I caught a fleeting glimpse of deer running across our driveway. At the tail end of the glimpse was a small, brown blur that I guessed to be a dog chasing the deer. But later, going outside, I was startled to discover that the small blur had been not a dog, but a fawn, that had become stuck between two wooden spindles of the railing that encloses the far end of our driveway.

While the larger deer must have run around the railings, jumping down the embankment along the side of the driveway, the young fawn had made a grievous error in judgment. Finding itself in the enclosed area, the fawn had attempted to continue forward through one of the narrow openings between the rails, instead of changing its course. While the front half of the fawn had fit between the spindles, its hindquarters did not. The fawn was wedged in and could not get out. All attempts to free itself by kicking and squirming only exacerbated the fawn’s situation.

But as bad as the fawn’s entrapment appeared to be from the driveway side of the railing, the total picture, revealed only from the other side, showed the entrapment to be a blessing in disguise. The front half of the fawn that had passed between the spindles had no where to go but down (literally), for the driveway and railing sit atop a large retaining wall that supports the driveway. The front half of the deer was dangling fifteen feet in the air above a wooden walkway below. The fall could easily prove fatal. If that were not bad enough, the dire situation was exacerbated by yellow jackets that were coming out of the retaining wall, stinging the fawn at will.

Distressed by the fawn’s situation, I called my husband, and we quickly explored options. There weren’t many. The best plan that came to mind was to have one person loosen one of the two spindles that held the deer in place, while another person (theoretically) yanked the fawn backward to safety. Not up to the task of deer wrangling myself, we called a friend to help my husband and then waited his arrival.

While we waited, my husband decided to check one of the two spindles holding the fawn to see how tightly it was attached. Apparently, by that point, due to the fawn’s squirming, it had become quite loose. As soon as my husband touched the spindle, it pivoted away from the fawn and set the fawn free. In deadly silence, the fawn fell out of sight to the walkway below.

We both stood motionless, stunned by the unexpected turn of events. We had just witnessed what we had dreaded most and had wanted so much to avoid. But my external stillness was a cover-up for the rage that was building inside of me. How could this have happened? What had gone “wrong”? The spindle, coming off in the manner that it did, was not part of our plan, and now there was nothing that we could do about the situation. Couldn’t God have kept this from happening in the first place or at least have given us the opportunity to try to do something to help? Indignation at the apparent injustice of it all rose inside of me.

Perhaps you can relate. On the one hand, like the young deer, we have all made poor decisions (some greater than others). Sometimes our errors result from inexperience or lack of understanding, but sometimes they come from bullying forward, insistent upon doing things our way. Then, caught in the consequences of our decisions, we (and others) suffer the stings that our errors inflict.

But then there are times when we are simply witnesses to the varying degrees of trauma in which other people find themselves trapped. From our vantage point as observers, we may offer advice (plans of action), believing that our grasp of a given situation enables us to provide the necessary path forward to obtaining the desired result. We want to be helpful. But without fully understanding the scope of a situation, we more often than not find our helpfulness also to be limited. Equally bad, but enlightening, are the times when a turn of events leaves us completely stymied, and we recognize that we have no solution to offer. 

The plan that my husband and I had contrived to help the fawn on that memorable day met its demise when the fawn went over the railing. So did our hope. The compassion that we had felt for the fawn turned to pity. Nothing remained for us to do but to deal with the aftermath. Willing to face that gruesome task before I was, my husband leaned over the railing to face the inevitable. I stood still, dreading what he would see.

But the words that I expected to hear from him were never spoken. Instead, I heard my husband let out one big whoop. He had looked just in time to see the decidedly dazed fawn jump to its legs and dart off (albeit a little wobbly) down the hill. We both shouted with joyful relief at the totally unexpected outcome.

We all know too well that not every situation in life ends as well as did the fawn’s that day… at least, not from our perspective. But neither are our endings as dire as we often project them to be. Sometimes taking a fall is the only route to freedom––true freedom, and it must be taken.

As much compassion as I had for the fawn that day, the one thing that I never would have considered doing (had it been possible) would have been to have traded places with it, to have saved its life by taking its fall for it. My life was too dear (excuse the pun) to me for me to have ever considered taking such an act for a mere deer. Neither would I be likely to do so for many other people… unless the one involved were someone I loved more than my own life.

Yet, that is exactly what God did for each and every one of us:  mere mortals.

In mankind’s most helpless situation, created by our decision to follow our own limited thinking instead of believing God, we trapped ourselves in sin and couldn’t get out. Facing the granddaddy of all precipices that led straight to eternal death, there was nothing that we could do to save ourselves.

Then God, in the ultimate act of love, embodied Himself in His Son, Jesus, and took our fall into death for us. He literally sacrificed His life to become our Hope—our Saving Grace. Until the day when Jesus died upon the Cross, death was death, forever inescapable by the meager efforts of men. Then the seemingly impossible happened: Jesus rose. He got up out of our sinful death and walked in the eternal life of His powerful righteousness. He set each of us free from our wrong thinking about ourselves and about God, giving us concrete proof of God’s love for us all.

God’s mercy and loving-kindness operate beyond the scope of our limited expectations. God is forever Good and forever Capable… and forever desirous of raising up every one of us who have been set free by Jesus. All we need do is let out one loud whoop of exclamation—our confession of faith in Jesus as Savor, testifying to the Truth of the Great Exchange that has been witnessed by many.

And that is where God’s Plan—Perfect Love—beats our plans every time:  God steps in so that we can live on. 

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“[The disciples] were greatly astonished and asked, ‘Who then can be saved?’ Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’”  (Matthew 19:25, 26)  

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THOUGHTS ON “THE LESSON OF THE FAWN”

Randy on February 17, 2013 at 6:57 am said: “Wonderful insight Cathy! While the key part about God taking our fall is the vital part of this account, I was also struck with the paras in the middle about or inclinations to develop a plan and/or offer advice from our perspective or vantage point. Been learning about that a lot lately and this will help reinforce that learning. thanks!”

Cathy Butler on February 2, 2013 at 6:57 pm said:  “Learning to see the “good news” is the hard part sometimes. Often in a “bad situation avoided” I will “thank you Lord” but fail to see the “real” good news (lesson) He wants me to see.”

Connie Pollner on February 1, 2013 at 3:19 pm said: “I love the way Cathy demonstrates how we see the “good news” in many every day happenings if we look for it.”