Have you ever done everything right – or at least everything you knew to do – only to have things turn out utterly, absolutely wrong?
It was the spring of 2020, just after the pandemic bulldozed my first-time-author book release and travel plans into a brush pile and lit a match, when the FedEx man delivered a box of living hope.
Knowing my sentimental wish for a grape arbor at Peace Ridge someday, our California girl Sarah had several young vines shipped to me for Mother’s Day.
Always up for a project, my gardener-husband set to work building an arbor alongside the pond. Carefully following instructions, he set the tender new plants into the soil and watered them faithfully. When the neighborhood deer came to snack, Mike corralled each tender vine into little wire enclosures.
We knew not to expect a harvest for several years. (First they sleep, then they creep, and the third year they leap, right?) Mike regularly tended them, humbly sought advice from veteran viticulturists, and patiently waited with me.
When the summer of 2024 arrived, we were rewarded with small green clusters beneath the arbor. They multiplied along with my hopes. Our own modest vineyard would produce grapes for our table and treats for our guests. Yes!
NO.
Despite doing everything we knew to do (the royal we since Mike did all the work,) our grapes withered and died on the vine like bitter raisins in the sun. They’re worthless. Even the birds won’t touch them.
(L- Grape clusters we saw in France, and ours on the right!)
Truth is, I’ve experienced failure with projects – or people – far more valuable to me than fruit. You, too?
Maybe you lost your knickers on a financial investment that came highly recommended, or a home you purchased in good faith turned into a bottomless money pit. Maybe you spent years building into the life of a family member or friend just to have them reject you.
Perhaps you served faithfully for decades in ministry or missions until your church devolved into conflict or your converts fell away. Or you’ve eaten a healthy diet and exercised your entire adult life only to be served with a medical diagnosis that feels like a life sentence instead.
So, are you ready for a little lesson on how to fight back from what feels like failure?
I’m not going to give you one.
Yeah, as a preacher’s wife of nearly 50 years, I could insert a little three-point sermon right here – all principles beginning with the letter P – on moving from test to testimony, victimhood to victory, being a mess to having a message. (Writers are fond of alliteration. We must think it makes us sound wise or something.)
But life isn’t nearly so tidy as all that.
To live is to fail sometimes. Often there is nothing we could have done to prevent the family breakup, the financial misfortune, the shocking diagnosis.
We react in disbelief. We rage. We grieve.
We accept. We move forward. We learn.
We remember that we are mortal, after all. Fallible. Well-meaning, mostly. Hopeful, always. We want to think the best of those around us just as we want them to give us the benefit of the doubt.
And we recall the words of Jesus about forgiving those who have brought misfortune upon us —the very ones committing malpractice against our lives. We release them because He Who Loves Us frees us from the weight of their sin. And ours.
As for the fruitful years we hope will come? Ah. . . it was never all up to us in the first place.
Hosea, the beleaguered prophet with the whoring wife, sure got that right.
“I said, ‘Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.’” Hosea 10: 12
I read your comments after these posts every week, friends. I shout your praises and carry your petitions to the Lord Most High. I cheer you on as you plant and as you plow.
So what I can tell you that’s truer than true?
That showers of blessing will come. Sure as sure, righteous as rain.
It’s a promise.
Maggie Wallem Rowe is an author and speaker who writes from Peace Ridge, her home in the mountains of western North Carolina. Although she grew up on an Illinois farm, Maggie is inept at all things agricultural. .
Comments