Rabbits
in Winter
(by Donna
Schaper/alive now!)
You probably don’t know my
rabbits. They moved here from Vermont in
a box last July. Some boy was handing
them out on the street corner and all three of my children sat down in front of
the box as we walked by. The sign said
free rabbits. The kids said sit-down
strike.
I thought it was fine to have
rabbits outdoors in the summer, but I was scared about the winter. I didn’t want them in the house. Then somebody told me about the way rabbits
grow fur. They grow it as the
temperature demands. This no doubt is
yet another piece of the majesty of God, putting fasteners on the seas, morning
lights in the sky, fur on the rabbits.
Take a family that gets into
crisis: a child that fails to thrive or
goes on drugs. The day the tragedy
announces itself the family does not have what they need to cope. When they tell you they don’t know how they
are going to cope, you have to agree.
They don’t know. Yet, their fur hasn’t grown. But what we see – in the parents’ support
groups of a thousand hospitals – is fur growing, capacity increasing. Our strength is made manifest in
struggle. Our growth occurs because of
the struggle. The fur grows in response
to winter slowly and surely. The bread
comes to us day by day.
I
see this in my personal life all the time.
I’ll say enough. I’ll shout too
much. God won’t say much back. And then I’ll find a new opening at the
bottom of the well. A new capacity to
take risks. A renewed capacity to love
and forgive. A crevice when I thought
there were no more places to go to feed on the tree.
I have often heard it said:
“First, you jump. Then, you get your
wings.” In the deep of winter our fur
grows. Our capacity to handle trouble
grows with the trouble.
(Reprinted
with permission by the Upper Room)
