"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." Proverbs 3:5
While sitting at breakfast a few weeks ago, my little Kindergartner Emma, was telling me all about bones in the body. She excitedly prattled on about her arm bones, leg bones, tummy bones, and head bones. Looking down at our dog, who always patiently sits under the table waiting for something yummy to drop, she said, "Mommy, do dogs have bones?"
I responded in the affirmative as I quickly Googled dog skeletons for her to see. She then wanted to see a cat skeleton ... and a mouse skeleton ... etc, etc. It slowly evolved into a game of me showing her a skeleton and her guessing what animal it was. Fun and educational. A win-win! And then I showed her a peacock skeleton. She knew it was a bird but struggled with what one. So I finally told her what it a was.
"A peacock! What's a peacock?" she asked.
Stunned at her answer, because peacocks roam wild where we live here in Florida, I pulled up a picture of one on my phone. Oh my goodness! She could hardly contain her enthusiasm as she viewed the pics of the beautiful bird and all its showy feathers. She went on and on about how beautiful she was; how colorful she was; how lovely she was. And then I told her it wasn't a "she." It was actually a "he."
"Would you like to see the girl peacock?" I asked.
" Yes!!!" This mommy could read her girl like a book. In that little mind I could hear ... If that's the BOY, I can't wait to see the GIRL!! While envisioning a pink and purple feathered bird with sparkles and rainbows!!
I pulled up the pic and handed her my phone. My heart almost broke as my daughter's face dropped into complete and utter disappointment. She stood there staring at the male and female bird side by side in quiet disbelief. She literally could not speak.
"I know, Sweetie. It just doesn't seem fair, does it?" I empathized.
"No. It doesn't." Was all she could manage to get out.
I jumped in. "But let me tell you how amazing God is in making the girl this way! That girl peacock will be a mommy peacock. She will live on the ground caring for, feeding, and protecting her babies. If a dangerous animal comes along, one that might try to eat her or her babies, she can hide herself and her babies because her colors blend in with the ground. If she was as bright and colorful as the daddy peacock she wouldn't be able to hide, and she and her babies would not survive."
Although I could tell she was processing the logic in what I was saying, the disappointed look did not leave her face. To her, that trade off was clearly hard to accept. And as she walked away to go play, flashbacks of things I've clearly struggled to accept played in my head. You know, thinking things would be one way and they ended up not even close? A wise person once said the depth of one's disappointment is in direct correlation to the distance between their expectation and reality. I could not agree more!
However, it is those same disappointments that cause us to realize God wants to be way more than a Fair Weather Friend to us and loves us way too much to leave us with Fair Feathered Faith. You know, able to praise Him when all is well but blame Him when things go wrong? Disappointments are opportunities to decide where our focus will be. Will it be on the disappointment as we stare at the chasm between expectation and reality, or will we choose to lean not on our own understanding trusting the One who sovereignly allows things to pass through His hands? Sometimes it is hard to reconcile a God who has the power to change our circumstances and yet chooses not to. The challenge is trusting that His greater good does not have to involve the answers we desperately seek and pleadingly pray for. For some this is a hard thing to do. For other's, an easier one. For me? Not hard but a continual process. Every time the questions come I must choose to lay them at His feet in complete surrender.
As I sat contemplating the lesson of that peacock that morning Matthew 6:26 popped in my head. "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?"
Lord, whether we understand Your ways or not, You have Your reasons. And if you cared enough to make that mommy peacock homely to fulfill her purpose, how much more can I and should I trust You in making my two children with special needs just as they are? Once again, Lord, I choose to trust.
