Are the bagworms winning?

What is it with these bag worm things??  Sheesh!  The trees around town look like Mordor. 

I am told by my gardening guru at work, that the weather conditions have been very friendly for the proliferation of these wicked creatures that are nibbling steadily away at what was to be my beautiful autumn color.

The good news, she tells me, is that no matter how bad the tree looks, the timing of this outbreak is just right in that the trees are shedding their leaves anyway, and this will take care of the problem before the trees are killed off.

Timing.  Hmmm. 

I’m not always real good with that concept.  We have a special word in English for what I’m feeling:

“NOW”

I’m not sure waiting gets all that much easier in adulthood than from when we were two.  Our expectations tend to also hatch impatience along with life’s bagworms as they appear and start chomping away.  It may seem like our plan was on perfect course, then the devastation came to corrupt or supplant the beauty of our projected outcome.

The relationship went askew.

The church closed its doors.

The job lay-off came despite the prayers.

The child took a tangent way of living.

Interestingly, the trees around town are still rooted.  They don’t just pull out of the ground and go elsewhere simply because the worms show up.  So I think the strategy is not only the TIMING of the situation (God’s part), but the ROOTED-NESS as well (our part, with God’s help, of course). 

I love the story of Joseph when he finally reveals himself to the brothers who had tried to kill him many years before.  At this part in the story, Joseph is the Number Two Chariot in Egypt, and realizes that God had allowed Joe’s originally hopes and expectations to be dashed (in very definite and painfully unfair circumstances) for a greater plan.

“You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.”

As I sit out here on the patio writing this, my fingers are cold because Fall is in the air, and the leaves are doing just that—falling.  Which means the worms are about to die (YESSS!), and even though the trees may not be quite what I expected or hoped (this year), they will come around again.

All in God’s good time.

Genesis 50:20  New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.