The Acorn and the Pumpkin

As I was recently cleaning, I found a copy of a poem from high school in one of my old notebooks. The original tale was written in French about a farmer (country bumpkin in some translations) who questions God's wisdom. It's a bit long, but it's a good read.

The Acorn and the Pumpkin
God's works are good. This truth prove

Around the world I need not move;

I do it by the nearest pumpkin.

"This fruit so large, on vine so small,"

Surveying once, exclaimed a bumpkin

What could He mean who made us all?

He's left this pumpkin out of place.

If I had ordered in the case,

On that oak it should have hung

A noble fruit as ever swung

To grace a tree so firm and strong.

Indeed, it was a great mistake,

As this discovery teaches,

That I myself did not partake

His counsels whom my curate preaches.

All things had then in order come;

This acorn, for example,

Not bigger than my thumb,

Had not disgraced a tree so ample.

The more I think, the more I wonder

To see outraged proportion's laws,

And that without the slightest cause;

God surely made an awkward blunder."

With such reflections proudly fraught,

Our sage grew tired of mighty thought,

And threw himself on Nature's lap,

Beneath an oak, to take his nap.

Plump on his nose, by lucky hap,

An acorn fell: he waked, and in

The matted beard that graced his chin,

He found the cause of such a bruise

As made him different language use.

"O! O!" he cried; "I bleed! I bleed!

And this is what has done the deed!

But, truly, what had been my fate,

Had this had half a pumpkin's weight!

I see that God had reasons good,

And all his works well understood."

Thus home he went in humbler mood. 

Jean de La Fontaine, Book 9, Fable 4

www.musee-jean-de-la-fontaine.fr/jean-de-la-fontaine-fable-uk-126.html

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My pastor has a saying that I have picked up. "Aren't you glad God is smarter than we are? Amen? Amen. How many times have we questioned God's wisdom when it comes to our lives? How many times have we set judgment on His love and kindness because something isn't going according to OUR plan? When something goes wrong, how often do we set the blame on God because "Indeed, [He made] a great mistake" as the poem says.  

If I can be deadly honest, 2014 sucked.  We're not talking "a bit of inconvenience" sucking. We're talking "swirling blackhole vortex" kind of sucking.  Financial battles left and right, along with totaling the truck, medical issues and changes in job statuses good and not. All of this might have been manageable had it not been for the straw that broke the camel's back. Our son's teacher recommended he be tested for autism.

Something inside of you dies when you find out your child is handicapped, different or what the world would consider "not normal." I realize this sounds self-absorbed but dreams of watching your son play organized sports, serve as a ring bearer or even a crown bearer in the Homecoming court dissipate like a whisper in the wind. (Maybe that last one is only a high school teacher's dream.) Maybe it's arrogance but I fight this stigma. "Hey, I'm a teacher. Teacher's are supposed to have high performing, top of the class kind of kids, right?" What's worse is those who are closest to you are completely clueless to the pain they contribute. Friends and family judge and criticize (not always secretly) while simultaneously taking for granted the simplest things like going to the store, playing with other children, or talking with their child; to hear them say, "I love you." An overwhelming sense of anger directed in many directions ensues and the tendency to question God follows close behind. But then I get out my Bible and read:

Jeremiah 29:11  "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Have you ever been hit with truth right between the eyes? Wow! Let's get some perspective on this verse. The people of Judah had turned their backs on God and rejected those who tried to call them back. They were arrogant and self-absorbed. Sound familiar? They ridiculed Jeremiah when he told them of the devastation. "Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north...and I will send Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon...against this land and against its inhabitants...and this whole land shall be a desolation and a horror, and these nations shall serve the king of  Babylon seventy years." (JEREMIAH 25:9-11). All of these things Jeremiah prophesied came to be. The people lost everything. They lost their homes and they were separated from their families as they were forced into slavery. They were deported to a  strange new land with strange new customs. The 29th Chapter of Jeremiah is Jeremiah's Letter to the Exiles. So when Jeremiah says in Chapter 29, verse 11, "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future," this is Jeremiah prophesying that God has plans to bring them out of their despair. (Which did happen.... (drum roll, please.... 70 years later! The people were allowed by King Darius, king of the Persians, to return to their land to rebuild it in 536 B.C.)

So where does this leave us? Through all of life's hardships there is one place where we can place our hope and future. God assured the exiles of Jeremiah's day that He loved them. Even in their bleakest hour God was there and influencing events toward their proper conclusion. He is still there today. His plans for our future should fill us with hope. I love my son but God's love for my son is incomparable. Even though this time in our lives seems bleak, I know that God has a plan for my child; "plans to prosper [him] and not to harm [him]."  I have to keep reminding myself this when he's having a meltdown and people are staring. I have to keep reminding myself this when he's treated unfairly by children and adults because he's different and even when I've become frustrated beyond measure when he won't just tell what it is he wants.

God has a plan for you, my son, and my friends, if you find yourself reading this, please know that God has a plan for you as well. He is exactly the way he is supposed to be. Don't question His love for you. Sometimes bad stuff happens but when we rely on Him, have hope in Him, He will bring us too out of our despair into prosperity.