Life in the Garden

 I grew weary of tending my garden. I am not sure exactly when the shift began, I have loved gardening my entire life. In the garden with Grandma, in the garden with Mom, even with my dad and Grandpa Larry. They were the greatest of times. I was so excited to grow my first garden that I broke up the ground under my kitchen townhouse apartment window and planted flowers and had pots of tomatoes and peppers. My first "big" garden grew in abundance and I learned quickly how many zucchini plants one should NOT plant. Ha. So why would something that once brought such memories and joy bring drudgery and dread to one's life?

The shift. Maybe the weeds one year just got way out of hand. Perhaps one summer and spring just became so busy there was not the time to properly tend to things and it all got out of hand. I know that at one point I determined to do things better for the soil and animals and so forgo sprays and tilling. Boy was I  not ready for that. The cutworms were first, taking over in all manner of places. Then the grubs, and this year the grasshoppers. Two previous years of drought with new trees and many things to water could be exhausting. All of this is valid, but is there more? Gardens are hard work. Could it be that I just was tired of the effort, tired of the too hard? Tired of the low return? Chickens, I forgot to mention the chickens. Last year I had no cucumbers thanks to them thinking they needed to get to them before me before they were big enough to pick. Is there a point where you just throw up your hands?! Oofta. 

I have always been intrigued by gardening and the parallels that one can draw with our lives. Weeds? Oh that sin nature and the irritations that give rise and won't be cast off. Insects? How often do we let the opinions and influences of others in our lives eat away and deter the fruit in our own lives? Drought...oh the drought times are so hard to endure. I didn't only grow weary of tending my garden outside. I have grown weary of tending the garden of my heart. I had grown lazy in letting the weeds of sin and selfishness, all of those fleshly desires and thoughts grow up in my heart. Some I didn't even see. Resentment, bitterness. There they were, growing up with a host of other weeds I had let go unchecked. Anger, disrespect, check, let's pull those up too. Then the drought...somehow the weeds yet survive even if the fruit does not. Pests? Always plenty of outside voices vying for attention. Open social media, but from experience, don't camp there. Dangerous. They will devour everything good. 

And so, here I am. I can see it now. I have become frustrated that the beauty is gone, or struggling to survive. It struggles to bear fruit that makes it profitable and good. Sometimes, though we would prefer a means that is easier and more gentle, the harsher chemicals or processes must be applied to bring about productiveness and fruitfulness. Time. Effort. Pruning. The hard work. I have had to spray for the grasshoppers this year, wowza, it's been years since they have been so prolific. In my heart? Oh, I don't think God will use pesticides per sae, but does he remove often those things that are pulling us away? He does the pruning, shows me the weeds and helps me get control of them. It sure is a process when you can barely see the fruit for the weeds. Both physically and metaphorically. :) I find that I do often find peace there in both as well. And so I will press on, as Paul so often admonishes the believers to do, so that I my reach the goal. I pray you would as well. 

The Heart of a Mom

Journal Entry May 9, 2020

I just sat down with my cup of coffee and am attempting to collect my thoughts. It is a cold, extremely windy, dreary day. Befitting of my mood. I have so many things on my mind, but one continues to come to the forefront. It is an image. It isn't as if I have never experienced it before, simply this time was different. It's the image of a gentle young cow standing over her stillborn calf. It was my daughter's cow, one of her best. Nobody had been out to check since that morning, so we don't have an idea what went wrong or if it could have been prevented. Regardless, it struck a chord in my heart. I watched as she nuzzled, licked and called, perplexed that he wouldn't get up to nurse. I had to look away, knowing the tears would come if I didn't. I knew. I knew that life wouldn't return to that motionless body, and yet there she stood, summoning, trying to coerce, as if her touch and voice would bring him back. Unbidden, the images of those mamas I know who also have held their breathless newborn babes came to my mind and my heart shattered all over again. Yet, unlike that gentle creature standing before me, they had the knowledge that the lives the held would not be resurrected this side of heaven. And still they held on, admired, spoke love and longed for the God who knit them together to breath life back into those still, small bodies. The clung to what was left of the dreams, aspirations and short time they had, not wanting to let go. The questions came pouring back from the far reaches of my mind, called out to the One who formed their inward parts. Why? For what greater purpose? Why bring us this far, so close, just to pull it away? All of the time knowing I am not really seeking the answers, but the comfort and reassurance of Him whom I know has them.
What if it happens again? I am here. I have it under control. He whispers to my heart and places another piece back into place.
I can't do it again! Not myself, nor can I watch someone I love endure it. You don't have to. It is my strength made perfect in weakness. I can.
Another piece is slipped into place and my heart is strengthened.
I then remember another image, hidden in the image that encompasses my thoughts. The picture of one calling to the dead to rise up. The one who, with a voice or a touch, coerce life from death. I am encouraged. I long to turn over the dead places of my life, the areas where I have ceased to grow, and let Him speak life into me. I also long for life to be breathed into those around me, to be witness to the regeneration of God's people, knowing it changes the landscape considerably.
Maybe it is the child that now occupies space within me, or the day that we soon embark on or the time of year for me that it represents. Whatever stirred my heart, I am grateful. I am grateful for God's revealing.
To you Moms...you are ever in my thoughts and prayers. As we celebrate a holiday that focuses on all that a mama does, I think of what you did. You sacrificed the life of one you longed for, though it wasn't your will, and submitted to the will of a Father who holds the answers, but more importantly, our lives. Holding fast to eternity because you know that our true hope is only found in Him and He never fails us.

The Powerful Name of Jesus

My heart was so heavy this morning. Look around, it doesn't take much to get that way. So many people are hurting and you want so much to take the hurt away and you can't. Sickness, accidents, struggling marriages and families, struggling churches, it is a self-centered, sin-centered world in which we live. Our focus is on what I have done, what is best for me, what works for me and how others can help to meet my needs.

We have the ability to help. We can give advice, we can listen, we can encourage, and most importantly, we can pray. What is exhausting and discouraging is when you have done all of this and people are still hurting. We grow frustrated. Doesn't God care? Doesn't God want to heal this marriage, grow His church? Then I remember the one other most important thing I can do. TRUST. God has this. As I listened this morning to a song performed by a talented young man who is also a friend, I was reminded. God is all powerful. He can do anything, but He chooses that which is best for us, that which will further His Kingdom. In all of this God wants to draw us nearer to Him. He wants us to put aside our own selfish desires, lay down our own agenda and trust the beautiful, powerful name of Jesus. He gave His life to give us life and we still try to bargain and fuss about not getting our way. He wanted us to be with Him in heaven and made the ultimate sacrifice to get us there and we still act ungrateful.

I thank God that He speaks to us. That in our tough spots He opens our eyes to things that are there but we haven't paid attention to. I am so grateful that He looks down on us and desires to remind us of His love for us, His forgiveness, and His mercy. I am so thankful that He desires to have us as His own, draw us closer to Himself and grow in relationship with us. Today, let's put aside me. Let's put aside my agenda and really take an honest and hard look at what God wants for us.

The Day Begins

The sun is beginning to cast shadows on the landscape, though you cannot yet see it. It is there. I am sitting with my first cup of coffee (and probably last if the kids come in from choring before I get done) beside the fire basking in the quiet for a short time before the day convenes. The early morning quiet and stillness does the same for my soul. Quiets me, centers me, helps me to be still and listen. I don't always get to experience it when the day starts late or everyone else starts early. It is a blessing. My husband is off with the semi truck to fix a flat tire then he and our oldest will head out west to deliver a load of hay. I will need to get moving and get the pickup and horse trailer hooked up, take the trailer in and get a tire fixed and then head out with the rest of the crew to town for a violin recital and to pick up "milk". On the hoof. Last year was hard on our milk cow herd so we are adding new blood. Then our oldest can let her current charge, a crippled up black angus cow that was suffering from foot rot, back out to pasture. The kids are pretty excited. It may mean that we get to experience calving a couple of months earlier than we normally would. I guess that is reason for excitement. At times calving brings more excitement than Christmas. It is like Christmas, each little one is a gift to a ranch family like us. When I look out now the drifts around the shelter belt are beginning to take on a glow, the wind is nearly still this morning. A glorious morning after days of wind and blowing snow making roads impassable. The sky is nearly clear.
 I love a new day, every day is as that sky. A clear slate. My decisions determine the course my day will take. My attitudes determine what my experiences will be like. Despite circumstances, my reactions to circumstances can bring life to those around me or, figuratively, death.  I didn't do so great yesterday, some days are like that. A struggle to put aside selfish motives, to not give in to fear or self pity, a struggle to put away the things of the world and to put on Christ. To seek God's good for us and let His work change us into something new, and beautiful. That is my goal today. To be something worth looking at. To live a life worthy of the calling of Christ. To run toward the One who has only my good in mind. Yes, today I choose life. I choose to allow my words, actions and demeanor to give life to those around me. I choose to let God work anew in my own life.
The sky has turned from blue to pink and purple. The few clouds are taking on a tinge of orange. Time to face the day, get a start. May you find life today. May your desire be to seek after the One who gives life. Eternal life, given in the form of a baby, become man, who suffered and died on a cross so that the gift may be yours. Enjoy your day!

Memories of a River

When one grows up on the Mighty Missouri, I wonder if some of that murky water gets into one’s blood? I recall days on the lazy river, the sun penetrating my skin, the smell of the breeze off of the water. As I recently walked into a convenience store, the smell of nightcrawlers being sold piqued my consciousness. Anyone who has been there knows the smell; styrofoam and organic soil, whisking me away once again to the waters of yesterday. Whether from shore or water, the river was so much a part of my growing up years. Hours spent building sand castles, drifting lazily on the current in a tube to the nearest sand bar to pass the time skipping rocks, burying one another in the sand, or just running along in the surf, waiting for the boat to drift in and pick us up as Dad sought the origin of our night’s meal. Or what about the awe and wonder of one so young looking out on the black waters to see the lights of town and dam reflected when the fish were biting so ravenously after dark and into the night?

I now reside on the prairie that I have also come to love. I now have the wind in my being, the sun and the sky are in my blood. When summer, spring and fall are ushered in and I hear of my family’s time on the river or see the boats dotting the glassy surface as I cross the bridge, I long to experience it all over again. My hearts stirs the memories that transport me to a time maybe not so long ago.

I recently returned there. In the fall with all of its brilliance of gold and crimson. The wind dazzled the colors and set the frail leaves of the giant cottonwoods to drift down to blankets of gold covering the emerald of the grass. The brisk smell of the water stung the nostrils and the wind rolled the surf to meet the shore. I found a joy that day, sharing that experience that is so near and dear to my heart with my children, who, despite the cold and wind, found joy in it as well.

I cannot help but think how our surroundings, especially those of the past, shape who we are today, who we become. How what we choose to remember affects ones’ character in the future. The river isn’t who I am, didn’t make me who I am, but I can see the impact it made on the life of a young girl. 

Happy Mother's Day

Mom

Webster tells us Mom is one’s Mother. What is Mother then? A female parent…a woman of authority; maternal tenderness or affection. Maternal because a Mother’s love is just different. It is there when she learns that she is nurturing a child in her womb, there when it’s born, or lost. Tugging at her heartstrings with every little tug at her skirts, with every scrape, bump and bruise, and with every reminder of the love she holds for the child she carried.

A Mother’s love desires to protect, nurture, grow and show discovery. It rejoices in milestones, accomplishments and development of the person. It desires to see the best, cultivate the best in the person of her child.

 It causes the heart to break with every heartache, hurt, illness or injury that cannot be taken or suffered themselves. A Mother’s love longs to wipe away every tear, take away every hurt, heal and nurture.

A Mother’s love is a love experienced in no other relationship on this earth. Even when a Mother may not exhibit that love, it is there, she had it from the beginning and will have it until the end. It may just be wrapped in so many difficult circumstances and resentful, selfish feelings that you can’t see it.

Isaiah 49:15

 “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?”

To you Moms, whom I so admire and appreciate, Happy Mother’s Day. Whether your children walk this earth today or walk the floors of Heaven, you are Mom to someone. You are loved and admired for the selfless dedication you show to your families and friends. May you be honored and blessed today. :) 

Gardening

I love gardening. My mom gardens, my grandparents had HUGE gardens, my dad gardened. When I was really little I can remember all of us gardening together. So, for me it is more than just the production, it takes me back and I can remember some of the better and pleasant times spent with family. It has always been a pleasure to me. Until this year...

The last couple of years gardening didn't go the best for me. I didn't get to be out as much as I had hoped because of recovering from health complications following emergency surgery and severe blood loss, but that is another story. Regardless, I just couldn't handle the heat and didn't have the energy. This year I was all ready to go and looking forward to once again having a bountiful harvest. And then it happened...

I am being taught a lesson. I am still in the learning process, and, the way I see it, it is an ever going process. For me now, it is a hard one learned. I am learning a lesson about pests. The ones that creep into your garden and are unseen or unnoticed for a while, then you begin to see them, a few at a time, but there are so many other things that need done that you turn a blind eye, you'll get to it later. Then you go back. And it is overwhelming. So, you get discouraged and think it is no use and walk away. Again. The next time you come back with a resolve that you will get this under control and you make headway, smash the potato bugs (my apologies to the weak stomachs out there!) and pull the weeds, gaining ground and you are glad you worked at it. Maybe it won't be a total loss after all. You get busy again and it is a couple of days. Then it rains. When you get back out there a new growth of weeds has begun and the old ones are bigger than ever. Sigh, here we go again!! In all of this I am still thinking that the plants will grow anyway and do just fine. Wrong. Lack of timely water, too many insects, too many weeds and my garden is doing terribly. The bountiful harvest I had hoped for is going to be measly at best. To top it off the chickens and guineas have decided that is their favorite feasting sight and make a meal of the few bits of produce out there. Sigh.

Now, why would I take time to write about my failed garden? Who cares right? Not the end of the world, certainly and most assuredly not something that should be the priority in my life! Back to the lesson. Sigh again. Boy, some lessons are hard! Those pests...the weeds, the bugs, the chickens. Those represent the things in my life that keep it from being the garden that God wants it to be. My home should be a garden. Where my children can grow unhindered, to accomplish the things that God has set before them. My spiritual life should be the garden that God grows me in to accomplish what He has set before me and to nurture those in my care. So, I started out doing alright. I watered, (think bible study and quiet time), I pulled the weeds (think keeping out unhealthy influences), I kept the bugs at bay (think staying aware of strongholds, nipping sin in the bud when it rears it's ugly head), the chickens were kept in their own area (good things that are prioritized correctly), I had plenty of sunshine (time in the word and prayer and a positive outlook) and my garden flourished. YAY!!

Now I look at it and I finally see why the discontent has crept in. The weeds are ignored, the bugs wait, it doesn't rain and instead of keeping the chickens fenced, they run at will. Let me do a little bit better break down. There are those little areas of sin we don't acknowledge, then we justify it because we compare our own behavior with that of someone near to us, then it is just too difficult to overcome. Where we had done so well at prioritizing those good things and people, we are now putting too much time into one thing or doing too many things and letting it eat away at the real harvest to take place (the chickens!). We let attitudes creep in that are inappropriate and they eat away at the good things around us and the surrounding growth in our gardens. I justify yelling at the kids because, really, you would think after hearing the same thing this many times they would have it figured out, right?! I let a critical attitude go, because, what is the wrong in picking out the bad and wanting it to disappear...even if it isn't my own shortcomings...I let priorities fall by the wayside and give time to things that are meaningless, chasing the wind, instead of the things that matter For The Kingdom. Those bugs creep in and affect all of the plants. My husband, my kids, all of those closest to me. That has been the biggest and hardest part of the lesson. Have you ever seen a good field planted next to a field that has been neglected? After a year or two the thistles, quackgrasses, and other bad weeds spread from one to another, even at the best efforts of the one to keep them out of the well managed field. That is what I do to those closest to me when I fail to tend my own garden. The attitudes, sins, and mishandled priorities spill into those lives and influence them for the worst. I have seen it. I pick it up in the way my children interact with one another, the way my husband interacts with the kids, the way we all treat those around us. It shames me, and it scares me. I can acknowledge it in my own life, but what if they don't see it and take care of it in theirs? What if they become strongholds that they forever struggle with. I look for a hand to help. Someone who has more experience with this type of thing than me. My garden needs the proper care, more time spent tending and it needs the Master Gardener. Who better to show me the best ways to tend and care for my garden? With these things I can have Faith that, in time, it will flourish once again and produce an abundant harvest. It won't be easy, but nobody ever said it would be.