Big Rocks and an Altered Landscape

No matter where we lived,
     no matter the climate,
              or how short the growing season,
      no matter how many rocks,
                                 big or small,
my grandmother worked the soil
              and created beauty in its place.

She shouldn't have done it,
     such a vast amount of energy expended
     at her advanced age.
She shouldn't have been able to do it,
     struggling with rheumatoid arthritis
     for forty-five years.
She did not walk;
                  she hobbled.
When we even insinuated
           for her to sit down,
she would give us a look that
       would cause an army to surrender.

This pioneer-strong woman did not wake up
      a-moaning and a-groaning every morning
      with arthritic knees and stiff hands,
   saying, "O my LORD,
        how am I going to face today?"     
But she welcomed each dawn
     with a prayer and an attitude,
"Ok, LORD,
what do we conquer today?"
She followed Him
                     into His day for her.

She didn't see big rocks blocking her way,
   or even the need to maneuver around them,
         or pretend they weren't there,
but she embraced her difficulties as they came
                               and let Him redeem them.
They weren't a hazard to her,
           nor a hardship,
    nor a "Woe is me!"
        but instead,
                 "Wow, what can I do with that?"

She knew that her strength was too limited
               and challenges too overwhelming
      to carry along a burden of anxious thoughts,
                                or the chains of despair,
         those things that siphon one's strength
               and stifle the very breath out of creativity.
She saw the big rocks of life with different eyes,
          because she knew what God can do.

She also knew as she hobbled along
          that everyone struggles with something,
     hers just a little more obvious than others.
The difference is
        what you let God do with it.

Create beauty.
Let God redeem the hard stuff.

Ah Lord GOD!
It is You
    who made the heavens and the earth
by Your great power
and by Your outstretched arm!
Nothing is too hard for You...

                        Jeremiah 32.17 

(This poem was originally posted  on NightlyTea on February 13, 2014)