A Job Well "Un"done

As I journey though this life with God, I find that He sometimes speaks to me through the most unusual circumstances. I had one of those unusual circumstances this past Sunday afternoon. As some of you know, Pat has been working a lot of overtime lately...at least two Saturdays out of each month for several months now. That, combined with the fact that he leaves the house at 6:30 am every weekday morning and doesn't get home until 6:30 or 7:00 pm, has left many jobs undone around the Dill household. One of the "undone" things has been the job of cleaning up all the leaves that have blanketed our yard. We have quite a lot of large oak and maple trees in our yard and they have done their job of "leaf dropping" quite well. So since we didn't have an evening service this past Sunday, I decided that I would help Pat out and take care of all those leaves so he didn't have to worry about them. So I got out my "rake"...which happens to be a lawn tractor complete with grass catcher attached. I cleaned up the front yard without incident and moved on to the back yard. The majority of our trees are in the back yard so my task there was much more daunting than it was in the front yard. After I'd dumped the grass catcher at least 1,000 times, I had just a small section left to finish the back yard when disaster struck! Being the meticulous person that I am, I wanted to get as many of those leaves sucked into the grass catcher as close to the house as I could get. So I was inching (with this huge lawn tractor) closer and closer to the house...I was determined to not let any of those nasty leaves get away from me. I was, of course, in complete control of things. I would surely stop before coming in contact with the side of my house. And stop I did...without running into the house. However, protruding from the side of the house in the exact spot where I decided to stop is...a water faucet. Or perhaps I should say "was" a water faucet. Suddenly there was a fountain of water spraying over the top of the lawn tractor and onto me! I had hit the faucet and broken the water pipe! What had begun as a good deed to help my husband turned into a major problem for him...a dash to turn off the water at the meter, pulling off some of the vinyl siding, cutting a hole in the side of the house to expose the broken pipe, making a trip to Lowe's for repair parts, and then, in the dark, repairing the broken water pipe. As you can imagine, I felt horrible that I had caused all this trouble and extra work for my sweet husband who already works so hard. All he wanted was an afternoon of rest...but I fixed that! As I was trying to be a helpful wife and hold the flashlight, get any tool he needed, and just generally do penance for causing this disaster, the Lord taught me a valuable lesson. Sometimes trying to do even good things can be a disaster, if not done in God's way and in God's time. Sometimes we rush ahead of God and try to "fix" things or make things better for someone. We try to be sure that every single "leaf" of pain or discouragement or material need is taken care of. But when things are not done in the right way...in God's way and in God's time...it may only cause us, and many times those around us, more problems. And it may keep someone (maybe even us) from experiencing God's best. Or we may "fix" something that God didn't want fixed at that moment. That's why it's so important that we pray before we jump in to try to do what we women do best...be a "fixer." We need to be very sure how many "leaves" God wants us to clean up and just how close He wants us to get to the house...or we might create an even bigger problem...one that might not be as easy to fix as a broken water pipe!