Salad Shooter days

Sometimes life is a Salad Shooter and you are the veggie. My recent grand proclamation of rest was followed by one of the worst weeks I've had in a while. All hell broke loose at work. I almost lost $2.4 million. We had a Home Office audit (aka a week long root canal and/or rectal exam). My dog had a barfing spell. And the brakes on my car went on the fritz.

They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. That week just made me tired. Luckily I had a 4 day weekend over the 4th. The rest I had planned for the week prior did finally come. Funnily enough, now I am so well rested that I can't sleep at night.

Taking a step back and looking at life on this earth from a broad brush perspective, we all have Salad Shooter days, weeks, months or even years. I know that one won't be my last. But it's all part of life. And somewhere along the way, God uses it all to make a tasty salad or slaw that will bring glory to Him.

When Joseph's brothers threw him in the pit in Genesis 37, I'm sure he wasn't thinking, "Oh boy! I am about to be sold into slavery. Woo Hoo!" And so he was pressed through the blades of life. While he did come out on the other side a kaleidoscopic version of his former self, he was the better for it in the end. He recognizes this in Genesis 50:20 when he tells his brothers, " You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done..."

Rather than working through difficult times, seeking to learn what we can or looking with hope to see how God might use our trials, so often we get stuck between the blades focusing on our plight - never going anywhere. Maybe the sounds of our groanings echoing off the walls of the blender become some twisted form of comfort like the wooshy wub wub sounds of the womb. Who knows. But if we set up housekeeping in the blades of the Salad Shooter, wallowing in our troubles, never learning or growing from them - we will begin to stank like rotten cabbage.

Maybe we will continue to go through the grinder until we are ground as fine as sand. If that is the consistency we need to be in order to fit God's recipe for us, then probably so. Avoiding the process altogether won't do us any good either. An uncut head of lettuce sitting in the middle of the salad bowl doesn't do anyone any good (and it makes the host look a little crazy). Truthfully, I'm not sure we could avoid those blender times even if we wanted to. Much of what makes those times so cutting is the lack of control we feel, or the injustice we suffered that placed us there in the first place.

Whether you're dodging the blades at the bottom of the blender, being slung out of the Shooter and into the bowl, or getting a little slimy from hiding under a blade, it doesn't always feel like these circumstances will be used for God's glory. But I would like to leave you with these verses from the Message Bible:
"Friends, when life gets really difficult, don't jump to the conclusion that God isn't on the job. Instead, be glad that you are in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process, with glory just around the corner." -1 Peter 4:12-13

Have hope. Be of good cheer. God has a plan, and He is not asleep!