I saw a big fat Carpenter Bee fighting against the rain yesterday.
The sky had opened up unexpectedly, pouring gallons of rain down on our quiet little patch of Earth. This bee must have been as surprised as I was.
I stood behind the backdoor, watching him struggle to rise beneath the torrent. Each swollen drop must have felt like bricks on his tiny back. He was being pummeled and yet he continued to try to fight the rain.
I wasn’t sure where he was meaning to go. Certainly, if he left the cover of the porch roof, he would drown. This was Noah’s Ark level rain for this little guy.
I watched as he was pushed against the wooden banister again and again by violent gusts of wind, as if nature itself was telling him to stay put, wait it out.
Finally, he collapsed onto the banister, legs splayed out beneath him. He wiggled his bottom, shaking off the dew drops and collecting his thoughts. I left him here, pondering his struggle, safe in the corner of the banister.
The tenacity of this little bee was touching, but it also made me think of all the ways in which we struggle to rise when it is really rest we need.
Surely, this bee has no concept of ‘porches’ or ‘roofs.’ He must have been as unaware of this unnatural structure as we usually are of him. From this bee’s point of view, safety may have meant getting back home no matter what, something that was impossible in that moment. This bee may have felt defeated when he landed on that banister, thinking to himself that he had failed his little mission to get home safely.
From a larger perspective…. My own, in this case…. That was the safest place for the bee to be caught in. He may not have been able to be aware of all the ways in which his little bee life was spared that day, seeing only the struggle against the wind and rain and how it interrupted his plans, but with a shift in perspective, the way things worked out was Divine.
It was a beautiful reminder that we cannot always see the whole picture and may not know how things will work out because we are looking at our lives from a limited perspective. If we take a moment to rest and replenish ourselves, we can avoid worrying ourselves into exhaustion over something that may turn out even better than we’d hoped! When in doubt, zoom out, get a larger perspective.