God Works for the Good

In the year of 2004 at the age of forty-five I had a mild stroke. The doctors said mild but it was enough to slow me down for a while. While my speech returned to normal within a month and I could walk with a cane, the recovery was still frustrating at times. The stroke happened in the autumn and through the winter and into spring I was experiencing more neurological symptoms. One early spring day as I was walking down the rock walkway to our house, I fell, again. I clenched my fists and started crying and complaining and whining and in general just threw a fit. Then, when my pity party was over I opened my eyes and there in the walkway was a beautiful red tulip blooming.

Years ago we had tried to dig up the persistent bulb, but it was underneath so much rock and clay, we couldn’t get to it, so we just built the walkway over it. Each year it pushes up through the hard ground finds a crack between the stones and pushes it little head into fresh air and sunshine and then it blooms.

In that moment I knew God was asking me to do that. Get up and go on, push up through the hard times and find the sunshine...he was asking me to bloom. Sheepishly, I pulled myself to my feet, grabbed my cane and went into the house. With a cup of water in one hand and my cane in the other I went out to the little flower and watered it.

Our lives are full of these little lessons. I probably miss so many opportunities like this; a chance to get a little nudge of encouragement and hope or maybe an admonition that I need to get on with things.

Roman 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.”

I got up off of the ground on that day wondering what good could come from the ordeal of the past few months and yet, I was encouraged and ready to move on. It is not always easy but I am so encouraged in all that has happened because God really has taken my infirmities and used them to help others who have had similar problems. It opens the door to not only talk about their personal health issues but to tell them about how God showed me a tulip in a rock walkway and how He wants to work in their lives as well. The tulips are always there if we will only look.

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Donetta Garman is the author of "Growing Up Ugly" (Tate Publishing, 2008) and a wife of a rural church pastor. She resides in Osceola, Missouri with her husband of twenty one years, Gar Garman, on an idyllic spot in the Ozark foothills.
© 2008 Donetta Garman - All rights reserved. Used with permission.