This field was behind a hotel we stayed in a few weeks ago.

Though it may not look like anything particularly special, this field held a wonderful secret. At nighttime, at least on the nights we were there, this field came alive with fireflies.

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I consider myself sort of a firefly connoisseur. I spent a significant portion of my childhood running around at dusk with the kids in my neighborhood, capturing fireflies and stuffing them into milk jugs. It was an official team activity, and we took it pretty seriously. So, yeah, I’ve seen some things when it comes to fireflies…  

But I’ve never seen that many in one place. I mean, really, it was incredible. As the sky grew darker, more and more fireflies seemed to congregate, dazzling the otherwise unremarkable field with a sparkling light show.

In the light of the sun, these fireflies were nowhere to be found. Or at least, they weren’t noticeable. In the dark, though, they glittered and glowed as they danced through the air in droves. It was breathtaking.

Sometimes, in the darkness, we come to understand things about the light that we wouldn’t have seen otherwise. We see new, beautiful, awe-inspiring things; things that’ve been there all along, but only become evident when the distraction of the surrounding light fades.

And here’s the thing about light in the darkness: a little goes a long way.

Last week there was a storm in the middle of the night. Both the kids woke up, afraid, during this storm. I had just gotten them settled back down when the power went out. This meant no night-lights and no hallway light – total and utter darkness.

And, consequently, total and utter panic.

They both screamed and clung to me. It was clear they wouldn’t be sleeping in their own beds, so we began making our way down the hallway to Mommy and Daddy’s room. (I probably looked ridiculous, inching through the darkness, fumbling around to find my way, with a kid wrapped around each leg. But that’s besides the point.)

As we got closer to our room, we could see a beam of light coming from inside.

A little voice shouted, “The lights are back!” Then both kids sprinted toward the light, which turned out to be the glow from the (battery powered) baby monitor. The lights weren’t back on, we realized, but that tiny bit of light was noticeably bright under the circumstances.

There are times when light is easier to see in the darkness.

I’m not saying darkness is good. But I am saying we can find purpose there, if only we keep our eyes open, and pursue the light we can see – even if it’s just a glimpse.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. – John 1:5 (ESV)

More on this topic to come…

Saturday, 4 p.m. It was here at last; I finally had a few minutes to do some yard work (transplanting rose bushes, potting begonias – girly stuff), without kids underfoot. After a particularly hectic few weeks, with no breaks from full-time “momming”, I took a deep breath and relished the serenity of being alone with my plants. My quiet, perfectly-behaved plants.

Ahhh. 

Saturday, 4:01 p.m. The rain started. I may be exaggerating about the timeline a bit. Maybe there were like, three whole minutes of nice weather before the sky opened up. Who’s to say? The point is, it happened quickly. And it wasn’t a gentle shower. It was the kind of rain that falls so hard and fast it bounces off the ground.  

I’d been forming a negative internal dialogue for a while by then. So naturally, this presented a good opportunity to throw some gas on that fire. It’s possible I was muttering to myself, in the pouring rain, things like, “Of course. Of course it starts pouring the minute I have a second to myself.” You know, those sort of things. When the thunder started, I should’ve gone inside. A wise person would’ve. But instead, I continued to do what I’d set out to do. Because… stubbornness. And because every street needs a crazy neighbor.  

At one point, the rain became so heavy that I could’ve used a pair of goggles. I could barely see. Again, I considered going inside. Or at least getting some goggles. But again, I kept going. By now, it wasn’t even stubbornness motivating me. It was the grumbling and complaining. The longer I kept going, the more I had to complain about.  

And then, from seemingly nowhere, came this thought: Look how quickly the Lord has provided the rain these plants need to grow and thrive. Look how the Lord is blessing your work. 

I wanted this thought to go away. It was too encouraging. Too pleasant. And I was in no mood for pleasant thoughts. But the more I tried to push it down, the more it rose to the surface.  

Because it was true, these plants needed the rain just as much as they needed the sun. Without this rain, they’d eventually dry up. They’d stop growing, thriving, and living.  

Rain is important. It’s good. Life-giving, even. Logically, we know and want the benefits of rain… and yet, we’d rather not be inconvenienced by it. We dread and complain about the literal rain, and much more so we do this with the “rainy” seasons of life. Or at least, I do.  

I long to look at rain differently. To see past its temporary hardship and recognize the growth and life it brings.  

My plants are currently soaking up the early morning sun. As far as I can tell, they’re not concerned with when the rain will come next. When it does happen, they won’t grumble and complain. They’ll simply accept it. They’ll let it change, grow, and nourish them. And they’ll thrive as a result.

Perhaps I could stand to be more like these plants. Quieter, for sure. But also more trusting and yielding to the One who makes things grow (1 Corinthians 3:6).

“When the ground soaks up the falling rain and bears a good crop for the farmer, it has God’s blessing.” – Hebrews 6:7 NLT

“The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.” – Isaiah 55:10-11 NLT

“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” – James 1:2-4 NLT

I kept it tucked away for years.

It was a gift from my mother; a burlap table runner with ruffled ends. I had pinned a photograph of a similar one on Pinterest a long time ago, and she happened to come across this one while she was out shopping one day. She bought it and gave it to me as a random, no-particular-reason surprise. She was always doing things like that.

One day I saw it peeking out from its hiding place under a stack of placemats, so I pulled it out. It was still as beautiful as I’d remembered. And still not the right size for any of the tables in my house. I tried placing it everywhere I could think to put it, hoping it’d work. But just like the last time I tried, it simply wasn’t the right fit.

My mom had been gone around 18 months by then. Getting rid of the table runner felt like letting a piece of her go. It was too sad. I couldn’t do it. And yet, putting it away to remain unused forever was even sadder still.

I stared at it for a long time. I stared for so long that the table runner began to take on a different shape. Something else was emerging. Something new.

What if…?

Yes.

I took it down to my sewing room, found my scissors, and began to cut. The metallic sound of the scissors made me cringe. Because once something is cut, it’s cut. There’s no going back, no un-cutting. I was left with three pieces of fabric; two long rectangles from each end – these would turn into pillows (I hoped), and a shorter rectangle of leftover fabric.

I’ll be honest, things didn’t look so hot for the table runner in this moment. What used to be something beautiful and perfectly good was now cut up into pieces. If you didn’t know better, you’d think this table runner had been ruined. You’d think its story was over.

Have you ever felt like that? I know I have.

There have been times when life hasn’t looked like I thought it would. Times when it’s seemed like everything I once considered perfectly good was all cut up into pieces. Times when I couldn’t see how the pieces could ever be put back together again.

Because it’s true, there is no un-cutting. There really is no way to go back in time and restore things to how they used to be.

But here’s the thing:

There is, for sure, a way to turn those cut-up pieces of what was into something new. That’s the business God is in, making something new out of the pieces, no matter how hopeless the project seems.

We often don’t see the newness coming. Perhaps because we’re still clinging so tightly to the way things used to be. We long for the time before the scissors came and cut everything to pieces. Or perhaps we don’t sense newness on the horizon because we don’t believe that God is there, that He’s good, or that He’s able.

There are all kinds of reasons we fail to see newness, but the Creator of the Universe doesn’t depend on us to see what He’s doing. He can make something new whether or not we perceive it as it’s happening.

Know what is needed in order to make the old new? Something to hold the pieces together.

This is true in sewing. You can’t sew without thread. You could try, I guess, but in the end you’d just be left with a bunch of needle holes. Nothing would hold together.
The Bible describes Jesus in this way: “…in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:17 ESV)

How I treasure this verse. Those cut-up pieces of table runner could never have put themselves back together. They were nothing but a bunch of hopeless scraps, forever damaged by their encounter with the scissors.

But then came the thread. Stitch by stitch, the thread transformed those ripped-up pieces into something new. I watched as the pieces became a pair of beautiful pillows. Here’s one of them:

These new pillows have a totally different purpose than the old table runner. They have a totally different look. They are something altogether changed, altogether new, and altogether better.

The table runner wasn’t conquered when the scissors cut through it. Not one little bit. But it was redeemed when the thread ran through it.

The Lord can take the torn up pieces of your life and redeem them into something new. He’ll do it using Jesus as the thread.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV)

“Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” (Isaiah 43:19 ESV)

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” (2 Corinthians 4:16 ESV) 

Last night I volunteered to help with a kids’ toy and clothing exchange at my church. This meant I left home before my children ate dinner, and returned after they went to bed. My four-year-old daughter was having a hard time seeing me leave, so I told her I’d bring home a surprise for her to wake up to in the morning. I picked up this princess puzzle, and when I got home late I decided I’d try to put it together just to make sure all the pieces were there before I gave it to her. I decide to use this picture on the box (of Ariel and Belle) as a guide. 

I dumped all the pieces out, and a couple of random items fell out of the box, too. One of them was a flash card with the word “quetzal” on it. I was quickly losing faith that all the pieces were actually in the box (it was after all, an item that had been donated), but I pressed on. After I’d pieced together about 10 of the 46 pieces I started to notice that other princesses were popping into the mix. There was a piece with Cinderella’s face on it. There was  another with Tiana’s. These princesses weren’t anywhere on the box’s picture, so by this time I was growing even more doubtful. I assumed that several puzzles got mixed together and then donated, which would be 100% understandable in the busyness of life. I almost gave up, but for some reason (stubbornness, maybe?) I kept going. And then things took a turn. To my great surprise, the puzzle began to come together, extra princesses and all. Eventually I put the last piece in place, and the result was a perfect, complete puzzle. Here’s what the finished product looked like:  

I should stop here and address the fact that it’s kind of embarrassing I couldn’t just glance at the child’s puzzle and see how it would come together, but that’s not the point. The point is this: I was using the picture on the box to set my expectation of what the puzzle should look like, but the picture on the box was incomplete! 

I put my faith in that picture, but I only had half of the picture. 

How often do we relate to God in this way? We see only a small part of the picture, and what we can see is clouded by our limited and sometimes selfish ideas of how the puzzle should turn out. We have so many expectations, and they often lead to discouragement and disappointment. In extreme cases, our unmet expectations leave us angry with God, causing us to turn away. 

But what if we were to do life differently? What if we were to throw away the “picture on the box” and embrace every day as a piece of a beautiful and perfect puzzle being put together by a brilliant, powerful, and loving hand? What would it look like to do that when the puzzle doesn’t make sense? Or when it’s painful? If the pieces aren’t falling like we want them to, what do we have to lose by persevering and trusting that the one who designed the puzzle will be faithful to complete it? 

Perhaps this is obvious, but I should mention that the finished princess puzzle was much better than what my limited perspective had in mind. May we all loosen our grip on our expectations today as we turn our eyes to the one who is able to do infinitely more than we ask or imagine (Eph 3:20). 

“We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!” (1 Corinthians 13:12 MSG) 

“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6 ESV) 

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8, 9 ESV) 

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11 ESV)