Unlike some women, I am not ashamed to say that I am 57 years old. And no one's life is perfect, mine included, but I love where I am in life. I have wonderful friends, I love my job, I love my church, and I feel connected to my family. Life is good.
But with age, comes all those physical aches and pains. That part stinks! There are some days my heart still feels like I'm thirty, but my body definitely feels 57. One of the things I've struggled with recently is hip and leg pain. It took me a while, but I finally figured out that if I sleep with a pillow between my knees, it helps relieve the hip pain. Sounds simple enough but wrestling with an extra pillow every night is not as easy as it sounds.
So, last week I decided to put an end to the nightly wrestling match. I went online and bought one of those small, contoured pillows, specially shaped for that purpose and it was a fraction of the size of a regular pillow. No more wrestling the big pillow every night and it even came with a little travel case so I can take it with me everywhere I go.
This week, I received a package in the mail, but it wasn't right. At least I assumed it was wrong. At my door, was a package the size of a small, padded envelope. As I picked it up, I was scanning my brain trying to remember what I had ordered that would be that size. I don't order a lot of things online - at least not until the holiday season starts - and I was puzzled. Much to my surprise, when I opened it, it had an invoice for my new pillow inside and what looked like a small stack of dryer sheets in a vacuum sealed envelope.
Are you kidding? That's my new pillow? I'm supposed to believe THAT little stack of dryer sheets is going to magically become my fancy, new pillow when I open that envelope?
So, I followed the instructions - I opened the envelope, pulled it out, and let it sit on the kitchen table overnight. I was skeptical. In the 3 hours it sat on the table before I went to bed, it had made some progress, but was still looking pretty pathetic. But to my surprise, the next morning, it looked like the product I had ordered. Impressively so. Okay... so I was wrong.
Maybe I'm stretching it, but it makes me think of the verse about mustard seed faith. He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matt. 17:20).
Over the last few years, I have come to a very different perspective on that mustard seed faith I used to take it literally. If I had the tiniest bit of faith, I should be able to do great things. If I only trusted for this one little thing, for this one little moment. But I don't see it that way anymore.
A mustard seed truly is tiny. It doesn't look very impressive. But place it in the ground and nurture it, and it becomes big and strong. So strong that birds hide within its branches. It's not just some wimpy, little plant - it can withstand wind and weather, hide birds and creatures within its structure, stand tall and be seen from a distance. All from a tiny little seed.
I believe God expects the same of our faith. He plants a seed, and we start out tiny in our faith. But with every season in our life, He wants to see growth. Every time we trust in Him, submit more of our lives to Him, He waters us. That living water that only He can provide. And each season is different - at least it has been for me. Some have been drier than others. But when that trust becomes a way of life, the flow of living water blesses us each day and our roots become deep, and our branches grow strong. Strong enough to bear the weight of whatever may land on them. And what was once a tiny mustard seed, has now grown into the faith we need to survive the winds and storms of life.
Like that pillow sitting on my kitchen table, our faith can look and feel pretty unimpressive at times, especially until we've had some seasons of living water. But like that wimpy pillow, don't be afraid to just sit and breathe. Let God fill you with His grace and His goodness and His glory. Take your time absorbing everything He has for you. And watch the miracle of growing your mustard seed.
Matt. 31-32
He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
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