Beautiful Inconveniences

The other day we’d finally had the first real snow of the winter while I was asleep. It was a surprise to wake up to the world covered in white.

I didn’t realize this fact though, until I was ready to leave the house. I opened the front door and saw the driveway covered, and my car buried. Our road had also not yet been plowed.

Change of plans.

Instead I went out through the garage, put on boots, and got to work moving the snow so I could get to actual work.

This was a morning when I REALLY didn’t want to deal with it. I didn’t want to wipe off my car. I didn’t want to shovel and salt a path so my family (I’m looking at you, Pap) could walk outside safely. This was an inconvenience I wasn’t expecting, and I was a little cranky about it, if I’m being honest.

But I did the work (with no shortage of internal grumbling), and finally jumped in my car, chilled to the bone. When I rounded the corner, the scene in the photo unfolded before me.

So lovely. Beautiful, really. A beautiful inconvenience.

And my crankiness turned to wonder and thanksgiving. And repentance.

I started thinking about other beautiful inconveniences in my life. Things that I was not expecting, and that caused a lot of hard work, but turned out to be really beautiful gifts.

There are things that happen in our lives that we have no control over. I’m sure something from your own life experience popped into your head as you read that sentence, so I’m not going to bother listing the infinite possibilities.

I will tell you that the unexpected challenges (inconveniences) I’ve experienced in my life have taught me the most about God.

They have forced me to lean hard into Him, because I honestly realized how weak and incapable I am at handling things on my own. I learned that if I wanted to get through them with my faith and relationships intact, then I needed to be much more like God and WAY less like myself (who grumbles internally way too much).

Things that are out of our control are never out of God’s. His plans for us unfold in His timing, and can always draw us deeper to His heart if we let them. If we are willing, in time we will even see the beauty in these inconveniences, these challenges, these hardships.

Beautiful inconveniences are really just opportunities for grace in our lives.

Don’t let the beautiful inconveniences in your life just be inconvenient hard work. Let God use them to mold and shape you more into the image of His Son. Let His strength shine through your weakness.

There is beauty in every story because God does all things well, and nothing placed into His hands is wasted. We can trust that He is good.

Philippians 4:11-13
(11) Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.
(12) I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
(13) I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

James 1:2-5
(2) My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
(3) Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
(4) But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
(5) If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

Psalm 27:1-5
(1) A Psalm of David. The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
(2) When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell.
(3) Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident.
(4) One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple.
(5) For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock.