Useless

     My family has the doubtful joy of living next door to a helicopter tree. For the unlucky souls who have not seen one, it releases thousands of seeds attached to a boat-like sail-fan that causes them to whirl around and around as they fall. It is a wonderful playmate to the wind--and a terror to our gutters. We have five downspouts, and each time a rainstorm comes the ladders come out, the children go up, and our grouping hands pull dirt-like leaves and sodden helicopter seeds off the top of each downspout.
    Each downspout but one. The back right corner of our house has a downspout that is not connected to a hole in the gutter. The winter comes and it ices over, the white bottom hidden in the feet of snow. Spring, and the chipmunks use it as a hiding place when human steps venture near, heading towards the trash can. Summer, and it sits, and sits, and sits, useless. Fall, and the leaves cover the bottom, and we stub our toes against it and scowl. Lately a treebush has grown up next to it, keeping us safe from its white blockage. For the past twelve years, it has sat there uselessly.
    But walking past today (avoiding the downspout), I realized there was a bird sitting quite still in the crook where it leaves the wall and stretches towards the gutter itself. The bird's head, body, and even its feathers, were completely motionless. I realized it was sitting on a nest, a small nest, not in the tree, where the frail limbs would break under the weight of even so small a nest, but the observant, creative birds had built their nest in the midst of the branches on the strong, useless, thin metal instrument of man. Useless for twelve years, it suddenly provides safety and strength to a mother, father, and family. It needed to do nothing but be there, as itself, amid the branches of the tree, and it was suddenly a gift.
    I have been home two years and thirteen days, and have felt useless. But what are my two years, thirteen days to the twelve of the downspout? And what am I being prepared for, that God keeps me here? Will I provide shelter, not just to the helpless, but to souls, eternal, immeasurable souls, which are made in the image of God? Would it be worth it, just to provide shelter for one family?
    Such a question doesn't even need to be asked. God, give me grace to be patient in the years of waiting for your purpose, for when it comes, it will be glorious beyond comparison to the waiting now.