It’s Thursday morning,
my correspondence day.
I can’t wait to create
a new coloring page!
I find a cool picture,
quite by happenstance …
though I think its discovery
was not at all by chance.
The coloring picture shows
a log in the woods …
demonstrating all the ways
a rotten log can be good.
It can be a bunny burrow.
It can grow a brand-new tree.
It’s a place where mushrooms
grow abundantly!
This will be perfect!
I think to myself.
We have photos of mushrooms
that grow like a shelf.
Oh, what cool mushrooms
that grew back in the fall!
I think I’ll include
pictures of them all!
I go to the server,
sitting out in the cloud,
and hunt …
but the cool photos can’t be found.
This is absurd.
I know they are here.
Then in my soul
a gentle whisper I hear …
“You can’t find the photos
because I don’t want you to.”
But I ignore the still small voice,
and my search I renew.
I scroll and I scroll …
Oh the server’s so slow!
I know I should stop,
deep down in my soul.
God whispers again –
“You should let it go.”
I finally give up …
for a day or so.
I’m restless and antsy.
I don’t want to give in.
So my fruitless search
I renew once again.
I scroll for an hour,
determined to win.
I sort through the photos
from beginning to end.
Finally! At last!
The photos I find!
I try to download them
from the server online.
But alas, my phone
is out of storage space.
I hear God’s whisper –
“Let go. Stop this chase.”
But I found them, God!
The photos are right here.
I can’t let them go …
not when they’re so near.
God tells me – “Those photos …
I gave you that view.
But you can’t download them.
Trust me for something new.”
But God …
mushrooms don’t grow in the spring!
I need the old mushrooms!
I can’t trust for new things.
Stubborn and obstinate,
I press on in my quest.
I take a screen shot.
It works! Now I can rest.
But my soul is uneasy.
I didn’t obey.
I didn’t let it go.
I pressed on anyway.
I might have the photos,
but I don’t feel right.
My grip on what I wanted
was way too tight.
It was just a few photos
of mushrooms so small.
But I simply can’t use them
after all.
God had said “No.”
And I don’t know why.
I don’t understand
why He blocked my try.
My cool coloring pages
I was creating for fun
are put on hold,
‘til I know what’s to be done.
Exactly one week later,
a Thursday once again,
I’m on an evening walk,
with my camera-phone in hand.
I’m ‘oo’ing’ and ‘aahh’ing’
over flowers in a ditch,
and trying to figure out
which different leaves are which.
I turn into my driveway
and glance off to the side.
My breath catches in my chest
at a treasure I just spied!
For growing in profusion,
on a mossy woodland tree,
are clusters of the coolest
mushrooms I have ever seen!
All at once God speaks to me,
deep within my soul –
“See, I was telling you
to let go of the old.”
God said, “I caused these mushrooms
to grow here for you.
I had planned something different.
I had planned something new.”
“These mushrooms right here …
these are the ones for you.
You can finish up that coloring page
the way you wanted to.”
“I prepared something special …
waiting in the new.
But you had to let go,
before I could give it now to you.”
Letting go of the old …
that’s really hard to do!
Letting go of all the dreams and plans,
and all we’ve had in view.
To let go. To surrender.
To trust when we don’t know …
makes everything more special
when God’s “new” to us He shows.
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!”
~ Isaiah 43:18-19
By: Amy Hayes
2020
