Disruptions

"'My times are in Thy hands.' Quite often they seem to be in the people's hands. When I wish for solitude and no interruption, the phone rings, people come, mail arrives that demands immediate action. Do I imagine that the interruptions come as a surprise to the Lord? Are they not, just as much as the planned things, a part of the pattern of things that work together for good?

"Flying in a small plane over Manitoba's vast farm country one spring evening, I was fascinated by the beauty of the patterns created by the contour plowing. There were stripes in varied shades of earth and greenness, circles and swaths and curves for miles and miles on every side. But the most beautiful designs grew out of the interruptions--a tree here, a pond there, a hill, a rock, a river. The plowman had had to bend the line each time he passed one.

"'Lord, where there are interruptions, it seems that the disposal of the time I had planned so well has slipped out of my hands. Help me then to remember that it has not slipped out of Yours. In Your hands, these unexpected things will be fashioned into an unexpectedly beautiful design.'"

~Elisabeth Elliot

(Discipline: The Glad Surrender, "The Discipline of Time" )