A Good Word

The Still, Small Voice

“I’m not sure I understand, Lord,” I mused in frustration as a hard, misshapen apple I was trying to core scooted around the cutting board.

The last couple of years had raised many questions. I was trying to help my family cope with my father’s death, finances were tight and my husband’s stressful job only added pressures we didn’t need.

While I had learned to float through bigger difficulties, it was the poky little ones that slipped through the cracks, like finding out at the grocery store cash register that I’d run out of checks or leaving a car window open in the smoldering heat only to have a storm blow in during the night, leaking water into the car.

After a few near-misses between the paring knife and my fingers, those apple cores were finally out of my way and into the trash.

“If only I had an apple corer,” I muttered as I filled the apples with butter and spices and tossed them on a cookie sheet and into the oven.

Then I glanced at my watch. Was it already so late? My husband would be home for dinner soon, so I had just enough time to make it to the grocery store and back. I grabbed my keys and headed for the new supermarket in town.

In the back of the store, a cluster of curious bystanders watched a knife salesman turn ordinary apples, like the ones I had just been scooting around a cutting board, into ready-to-serve creations. He made it look really easy. Even though I had so little time, I felt compelled to stop and watch.

He wowed us with the potential of those knives and the beautiful creations he quickly lined up on his table. He then thanked us all for watching and handed out a free gift—an apple corer!

I laughed at this timely and unexpected answer to my little aggravation. It was a tender response to a small problem that seemed much bigger than it was in light of the rest of my problems. Whatever the year would bring, I certainly wouldn’t have to worry about cutting my fingers when I wanted to core an apple.

Could God have prevented my bigger problems, too? Of course, He could! But then I wouldn’t have learned to trust God purely because of His character! More importantly, God has a bigger plan—one that I know nothing about—in which my life is only a small, but purposed, element.

Did the salesman know God was using him as he placed that apple corer into my hand? I doubt it. He simply wiped his knives, sighed at a crowd dispersing without buying anything and possibly even wondered as we all do at times, “What am I doing here?”

Sometimes I still ask God to show me what He is doing with a certain trial in my life, but not often anymore. Every year, new problems arise, but God says to count these trials as pure joy (James 1:2,3). God sees. He cares. Sometimes that’s all we need to know.