I was sitting, kinda mad at God because He'd violated my sensibilities (again) by knocking down one of my sandcastles. I'd put some serious work into, too.
You ever build something and have God knock it down? It's unsettling. That's not the right word. Mad. I get mad.
I love God, I do, but I also love making things. And I put a lot of effort into the things I make. Craft them just right. I pick colors and buff down the edges. Decorate.
And He knocked it over back into the earth it came from.
I know He's not a bully or a reckless child but I still sat, the stunned silence between us, angry. I asked Him why. "You know I'd been working hard on that."
Even in my own ears I could hear the petulant child in my voice but did not care, it matched how I felt. My feelings often overwhelm me to the point I don't care that it's the Master of the Universe I'm talking to. It was my sandcastle.
His answer was that what I was building needed to come down.
It wasn't His answer that soothed me, took the edge of the hot resentment in my chest, but His voice. His voice has a way of stopping the storms inside me. But I grasped at the clouds and willed the rain to keep lightly falling at least and ordered the sky to stay a semi-grey. This was no time for sun.
He showed me my sandcastle, my unauthorized sandcastle, and the intentions behind it. How it was born out of what He'd already freed me from. It was symptomatic. An invitation to chains that looked like bracelets but would keep me from the places He'd already shown me. Beautiful places.
I knew He hadn't come to stomp on my treasures but to remove fake jewels, so then why was I angry?
Because my way would have been to put it in a glass box somewhere. I don't like throwing things away. Maybe, like a particularly pretty cardboard box or piece of ribbon, I could have stored it.
"Some things have to be thrown away or they'll multiply in your sleep. And don't you know I have new things?"
Or maybe I liked having a side project all my own. He whispered something about building in vain. We have better things to do.
I wasn't angry anymore. I apologized for my attitude (I was only 75% sorry at that point but have found apologizing even at 75% helps me get to 100).
After a battle with one of my kids over something small or big, I'm tired and even after we hug and I say it's ok, I need some hours to regenerate whatever was spent at that place, but He always smiles.
He's not spent at all from me. His smile feels like the last bit of what's needed to make the sun come out and I don't fight it this time.
I looked it up
"Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. -Psalm 127:1"