there's a butterfly on my sandwich

My hair circled around my face as the warm air blew through the open windows of my car, it was just another evening as I rocketed down I94 on my way home from work, I had plans for what I was going to do when I got home, take a walk, get some writing done, pack my lunch for the next day, what I wasn't planning on was my rearview mirror riding home with me in my lap and spending the rest of the night trying to figure out how reattach it,  and the thinning and frayed strings that were loosely holding me together snapped. I am so sick of things going wrong, I wailed as I sat on the cement floor of my driveway looking strange and a bit pitiful to the passerby’s, looking as if they were seconds away from calling the padded wagon to come pick me up.  I couldn’t get my mirror reattached and I had to go to work the next day, I didn’t know what I was going to do.  I couldn’t go driving down the interstate with no mirror on my car, when a roll of duct tape caught my eye, and the next morning I rolled out of my garage with almost an entire roll of bright green duct tape keeping my mirror strapped to my windshield.  

The following day was the start of the weekend, and I had two days to figure out how to fix my latest conundrum, and I discovered it was quite an easy fix once I calmed down.  If you ever need to know how to catch a bat or reattach a rearview mirror, come see me, I am your girl. I know these things may seem small but they are only a few in a series of irritants that keep plaguing me, they stop for a while and then pick up again, and I am getting a little tired of it all. Start rolling a bunch of small stuff together and the ball becomes bigger, that is what it felt like, a big ball of small things steam rolling over me before I had time to jump out of the way.  

I know God had been trying to send me little blessings of comfort, the song Strong Enough to Save by Tenth Avenue north seemed to stream from the airwaves every time I turned the radio on, He bathed me in little breaths of peace at unexpected times, but I wasn’t much interested in His comfort I was interested in things not going wrong anymore, or at least not so often, I crossed my arms and stomped my feet and refused to speak to God until all this nonsense stopped, in other words, until I got my way, cause I’m real stubborn like that, at 40 years old I haven’t quite mastered the art of acting my age, my behavior was more like that of a two year old not getting a second ice cream cone, I was mad.

The day was beautiful when I stepped outside the doors intending to eat my lunch on the Riverwalk, days like that are quickly coming to an end and I am trying to soak in as many of them as possible, the sunlight felt warm on my face as my eyes adjusted to the brightly lit rays that were shining down on me,  the park bench that was nestled on the river’s edge sat empty, my favorite park bench because it comes complete with a little tree that provides some shade from the afternoon sun, my steps growing more anxious trying to reach the bench before someone else could claim it.  Letting out a deep breath as I unload myself onto the bench, the weight of what the world was bearing down on me going down with me, I reached inside my bag and unwrapped my sandwich from the cellophane while my stomach churned against the food I was about force into it, I hadn’t been hungry much lately, so tiny nibbles were all I could manage to eat. 

Then it swooped down from its perch on the leaf that hung above my head, flying things are not on my list of likes these days and I swat at anything that comes within 10 feet of me.  Its wings were bright yellow, the brightest yellow I think I had ever seen and it was coming in for the landing, right on the corner of my sandwich, it stayed for just a second or two before it realized where it was and started pumping its wings ready to take off again, and I watched it for a few more seconds as it glided off into the afternoon sky.

As long as we walk this earth we will have problems, some will fall down around us in a light mist while the swelling tide of others will threaten to overtake and crumble our foundation, it is through the storms that I become more aware of the tiny speckles of God’s handiwork, perhaps it is because through the storms or even the tiniest spray of mist that my focus becomes more clearly fixed on God rather than myself, I notice more of those moments of beauty that can only come from Him, those mighty blessings that He wraps me in everyday but have developed a habit of overlooking when my circumstances seem to be in perfect alignment and I am double timing it to the tune of my own agenda. 

Problems serve a multitude of purposes, sometimes they are used as discipline or correction, sometimes they are used to get our attention, sometimes they are used to teach us to learn to trust Him or strengthen our faith and sometimes they are used to realign our perspective, to tune us into always keeping our eyes up not just when the clouds loom overhead but also when the sunshine is burning brightly, because that sunshine has a way of blinding our vision, to look for the beauty of those moments that can only come from Him, when He lets us know that He is near, the beauty of a butterfly landing on our sandwich.