Who I Am With You (Imagination #10) - Staci Stallings Page 0,134

wind shakes them, and they have to dig for water. When they do that, they find the life-giving water and they become unshakable. It’s the adversity that makes them strong. It’s the adversity that’s helping you dig deep and really find God. It’s the adversity that’s helping you grow roots deep down so you become unshakeable.”

“Man, I don’t know how you do it.”

“Do what?”

“You just keep pointing me to Jesus even when I’m all Ca-YAAAAA!” Taylor waved her hands around her head. “You just keep saying, ‘Let’s look at what God would say about it. Here’s the lesson. Here’s what God’s trying to do.’”

“That’s because I’ve learned that I can’t fix it. I can’t fix you or the situation or any of it. I can only do two things. I can pray about it, and I can plant seeds when I’m given the opportunity. What you do with those seeds is up to you and God. My part is just the scattering and the planting.”

“Huh. Bet that’s not easy.”

“It can be a challenge,” Merel said with a soft laugh. “But I have to keep remembering that I’m not God. I don’t get to pick and choose who He sends to me. Whoever He sends, that’s who I work with for however long they keep coming. If they don’t come back, I know my part is over. Sometimes you don’t get even a glimpse of the harvest the seeds you sowed eventually produce. I have to be faithful to do my part and trust that God will fill in the other parts in His time and His way. But I do my best to not underestimate the seeds I planted either because I’ve learned it can take a long time for those seeds to come to fruition.

“There are a lot of pieces to this puzzle God is putting together in your life, Taylor, in all of the lives that come through this place. I’m just one piece, I’m not the whole puzzle.”

Taylor thought about Lily and Yoli. They were pieces too. “I think God’s going to start thinking I’m not worth all the trouble.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, I have you and Lily, my friend from back home, and Yoli, and you’re all saying kind of the same things, but it feels like it’s taking me forever to get any of it.”

“The process is the process for each person. Besides, you never really complete the process.”

“You mean there’s no end to this?” Taylor asked in frustration. “That’s not good news.”

“Sure it is. If you arrived,” Merel put finger quotes around the word as she said it, “what would be the point of tomorrow? Every day, we get up and we work toward something better than was there the day before. Along the way there are mountaintops, but if we choose to stay on the mountaintop, that’s it. That’s all there will ever be. That’s not life. That’s death.”

“So getting out of the boat isn’t a one-time-and-it’s-done thing then?”

“No. When you and God meet one challenge, there will be a next one. Look at David in the Bible. He fought the wolves to defend the sheep, then he fought Goliath to defend Israel, then Saul tried to take him out for fear of him becoming king, and he ran for years and years, hiding in caves. Finally, he became king and then fell apart with the whole Bathsheba thing. A life is many lessons and trials and failures and lessons learned and successes and more failures and more lessons. It’s not one thing. It’s all of it. You learn to keep giving it your best shot, keep praying, keep working, keep getting out of that boat again and again and again.”

“The boat,” Taylor said. “My comfort zone. I’m starting to think that’s not even a thing anymore.”

“Well, I’ve learned, if you stay in your comfort zone, you never grow,” Merel said gently.

“What about good friends?” Taylor asked. “Am I going to have to grow away from them too?”

“Sometimes,” Merel said even more gently. “That’s why you cherish them when they are with you. You hold them close and you shower your gratefulness on them because you don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring. But always be willing and ready to open your heart to new people who will expand that comfort zone. Give people time to show you who they really are, and when you find ones that fit, make a place for them, make room in your cocoon.”

“Make room in your cocoon,” Taylor