Category: Growing

The Plans I Have For You

I think most of the nation has had a milder than usual winter.  Here in Kansas, we really haven’t had a winter to speak of.  Trees were budding, bushes were bearing leaves, and perennials were poking out of the ground in February!

I shouldn’t have been surprised…..but I was surprised……to walk past my front flower bed one day in February and look down to see that my Salvia had made an appearance.  There were fresh little green leaves sticking up through the ground, unaware that the month was only February.  Salvia don’t look at calendars.  They only respond to the warmth of the sun and the mildness of the nights.

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Something occurs deep underground, in their roots, that awakens them and urges them to respond.  It’s God’s miracle of growth, not tied to the month of the year but to the environment around them.  And even though that environment can at times be harsh still at this time of year……at any time of year, really……their roots stir under the right conditions and so they grow.

I was tempted on that February day to lean over and clear off all the dead leaves that looked like a hindrance to the Salvia’s growth.  But I left the leaves for insulation against the cold nights, and the snow that I knew could still come.

I’ve watched the progress of my Salvia over the past few weeks.  The picture from this morning shows how much growth has occurred.  The dead leaves, old mulch, and other clutter hasn’t prohibited my Salvia’s growth at all.  The perennial nature of this flower is alive and well as those new leaves push through all the mess around them.  It just faithfully grows and grows, quietly but strongly flourishing.

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This morning in my quiet time with the Lord I read some verses that are very familiar to many of us.  They are words spoken by God to the nation of Israel, recorded by the prophet Jeremiah.

“For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope.  Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”   Jeremiah 29:11-13

These are verses of such encouragement and hope for all believers, not just for the nation of Israel during the time of Jeremiah.  But do you know where Israel was when God spoke these words to them?  They were being held captive in Babylon.  They were not in their home country, living freely, but were held as captive slaves in a harsh land far from all they knew and loved.

In the ten verses preceding these verses above, God had given some instructions to His chosen people through a letter written by Jeremiah and delivered to the exiles in Babylon.  God told the people to settle in to their new life in Babylon.  He told them to build houses and live in them; to plant gardens and eat their produce; to take wives and bear children; to increase and not decrease; and even to seek the welfare of their new city, praying to the Lord on its behalf.

You know how long God told them to be faithful in their captivity?  Seventy years.  SEVENTY years.

So when God then said that He knew the plans that He had for them……plans to give them a future and a hope……He also knew that this promise wasn’t coming to pass tomorrow.  He laid it out there for them.   He told them to live as He commanded and to be obedient to Him, even in their dire situation, for seventy long years.

God’s promise was given to them in the middle of less than ideal circumstances.   It wasn’t to be fulfilled immediately.  But while they waited, God wanted them to live their lives fully and faithfully to Him.

In fact, many of those Israelites would never see the promise come to pass.  They would die in Babylon.  Yet God still commanded them to be obedient and live the way He wanted.

How about us?  How does God want us to live every day?

He wants us to follow the example that He continually sets out there in His Word for us to see.  He wants us to be faithful to Him, to obey Him, and to grow no matter what is going on in our lives.

We may be going through awful times so full of grief and stress that we wonder how we can get out of bed every day.  God knows.  He understands.  He loves us.  He provides what we need.  He promises us a future and a hope.

But relief may not come today.  It may not come tomorrow.  Or the next day, or the next.  But like He told His people in Babylon, He says to you and to me today.  “Call upon Me.  Pray to Me, and I will listen.  For you will seek Me and you will find Me when you search for me with all your heart.”

It’s simple, really, but so difficult to do sometimes when our surroundings are bitter and hard and scary.  Call upon Him.  Pray.  Seek Him with all your heart.

Read His Word with an open heart to hear what He has to say to you.  Ask Him to lead your steps.  Obey what you know He tells you to do in His Word.

God will speak to you.  He will lead you to Himself.

And in the middle of your pain and your stress, you will grow.  Just like my Salvia in the middle of deadness all around it and the coldness of some nights…..still pushing through and growing, as God intended.

God loves you.  He truly does have a future and a hope for you as you follow Him, but not always…..in fact, seldom……without the suffering and sadness of this life.

But what a beautiful work He is doing in you and in me as we faithfully respond to His love and to His word in our lives!

So grow!  Grow where God has put you!

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Possess Your Possessions

Last summer we enjoyed a fabulous tomato crop in our little home vegetable garden.  It was, by far, the best tomato growing season in the 17 years that we had lived and gardened in Kansas.  We picked buckets and buckets of tomatoes, much to our great delight.

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We ate fresh tomatoes with our meals.  We ate fresh tomatoes by themselves.  We ate fresh tomatoes on sandwiches.  We gave tomatoes away to neighbors and friends.  I canned delicious salsa.  I also canned 34 quarts of tomatoes.  And Aaron gave tomatoes to his friends at his day group, which made him very happy.

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Now, I could have stood at the edge of our garden every day just enjoying the sight of those tomatoes on the vines.  I could have talked about how many were growing there, told everyone about them, and taken some pictures to share.  But what good would any of that have been?

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In order to really partake of my tomatoes, I needed to take possession of them.  That meant, in this case, to go to the garden with my bucket in hand and then pick each tomato off the vine.  It meant putting the tomatoes in my bucket, bringing them in my house, washing them, and then using them in whatever way I wanted at the time.

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I read an interesting verse one day.  The verse is Obadiah 17 (only one chapter in Obadiah).  This verse is referring to a future time, even future for Israel today, but a time when Israel would finally enjoy the fullness of God’s plan and blessings.  What jumped out at me was this phrase:  “And the house of Jacob will possess their own possessions.”

So how do you possess your own possessions?  I mean, if they’re your possessions, don’t you already possess them?

Well, it’s kind of like my tomatoes in the garden.  They were my tomatoes……my possessions……but I didn’t POSSESS my tomatoes until I really TOOK possession of them.  There is a huge difference in looking at those tomatoes, and really taking possession of them in order to fully partake of and enjoy them.

God made a covenant with Israel, one in which he promised to be their God and that they would be His people.  He promised them a land and many blessings.  God’s covenant is unbreakable and will never change.  But full enjoyment of all the benefits of that covenant, and of God’s full blessings, hinged on one word…..one sometimes very difficult word.

“Now then, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall by My Own possession among all the peoples…..” (Exodus 19:5)

See the difficult word?  It’s the word “obey.”  God wasn’t referring to covenant status here.  His covenant itself depended only on Him.  But covenant enjoyment depended on obedience.

God said, “All these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you IF you obey the Lord your God.”  (Deuteronomy 28:2)

Obedience equals blessing.

God repeatedly told Israel that obedience is better than sacrifice.  He told them over and over that the land and the enemies therein were their possession.  But they couldn’t fully possess their possessions until they obeyed God.

Obedience equaled full partaking of God’s promises and His blessings.

Possessing their promised possessions.

What about me?

As a follower of Christ, God has given me many great and precious promises (2 Peter 1:4).  He promises peace, power, wisdom, strength, and so much more.  These are my possessions in Christ, but not fully possessed by me until I walk in obedience.

Repentance of sin and walking in obedience are the keys to fully possessing all the wonderful possessions that I have as a believer.  It’s really very simple, but also very difficult.  Difficult because I so often want my own way.  Simple because God is full of forgiveness when I repent.

So I can stand on the edge of the garden, so to speak, looking in at all the beautiful promises of God given to me in His Word.  But only when I choose to read my Bible and learn of God’s will and His ways for me…….and then choose to obey……will I be fully in possession of all His promises for me.  I’m not talking about salvation.  I’m talking about living a full life the way God intended for me to live as His child.

I love the often unsung fourth verse of the old hymn, Trust and Obey:

But we never can prove the delights of His love,

until all on the altar we lay.

For the favor He shows;

For the joy He bestows;

Are for them who will trust and obey.

I don’t want to just look at God’s favor and God’s joy.  I want to possess God’s favor and possess God’s joy……to partake of those promises, fully.

Possess my possessions!   

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I’m Trying to Go HAPPY!!

Aaron and I sat down to play Skip-Bo the other night.  It’s a familiar nighttime routine for us on many days, this game of Skip-Bo.  As Aaron came to the table, I saw that he was carrying two bowls.  One was empty, and the other was full of Tootsie Rolls.  These Tootsie Rolls had been a sweet surprise from our friends, Jim and Joyce, this past Sunday.  Aaron was very happy to have been given such a huge bag of Tootsie Rolls, trust me!

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As we sat down to play Skip-Bo, while I was shuffling the cards, Aaron began unwrapping a Tootsie Roll.  He carefully took off the wrapper, and I then learned the purpose of his second bowl, the empty one.  He placed the Tootsie Roll wrapper into the empty bowl.  Soon he was ready for his second piece of candy, so he once again pulled on the wrapped Tootsie Roll, removed the paper, and carefully placed it alongside the first wrapper in the proper bowl. 

If there was ever a picture of how Aaron organizes his life, it would be in his use of multiple bowls.  I have blogged about this in the past, especially this piece from a few years ago.  It so fully explains Aaron’s use of bowls.  Put That in a Bowl!!

So as I watched him eat his Tootsie Rolls while we played Skip-Bo, I was once again reminded of how Aaron wants……no, he needs……his life to be just a certain way.  We all do that to some extent, but for an individual with autism, those needs are ever more acute.  The smallest disruption in routine and expectations can totally pull the rug out from under Aaron. 

Providing some fluctuations in his day and in his life can actually be very good for Aaron.  Finding the balance, though, is tricky.  Giving him consistency while also guiding him through changes can be very challenging for him, and definitely so for all of us who are a part of his life.

The staff at Paradigm can most assuredly attest to this fact.  They endure changing Aaron more than anyone.  Aaron can be very up and he can be very down at his day group.  Sometimes we see and know the triggers, and sometimes we don’t.  They have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly from Aaron during his nearly 11 years there. 

Aaron has been home this week with a bad cold.  He totally loves staying at home and would do so every day if we let him.  But like I said, Aaron needs to be away from routine and predictability in order to grow and to thrive.  He has friends at his day group and staff that he loves, but the atmosphere there is active and sometimes loud.  He can’t totally control his environment there……what people say or do……what activity he will participate in that day……how he will feel.  So for Aaron, staying home is much more preferred, but is not at all what he needs to do every day. 

He was well enough to return to Paradigm yesterday, on Friday.  I could tell he didn’t really want to go……didn’t want to think of leaving home for the day.  I was encouraging Aaron to keep a good attitude as I poured his morning coffee under his watchful eye.  He watches to make sure I do the coffee job JUST RIGHT!

“Mom,” he finally said.  “I’m not trying to go MAD!  I’m trying to go HAPPY!”

Wow!  His insights floor me sometimes.

He really wants to process life correctly.  Sometimes, however, it’s just a huge stretch for him to be able to do that. 

For Aaron, it’s Tootsie Rolls in one bowl and Tootsie Roll wrappers in another bowl.

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He can control this business of candy and candy wrappers.  He can’t control, though, his atmosphere at his day group.  Some days it’s just too much.  But we must gently push……must keep trying……must understand how hard it can be for him.

He had a great day yesterday at Paradigm.  They went to watch Rogue One at the theater.  Well, I’m not sure if it was a “great” day, but Katie told me that it was a good day……and to me, that’s great. 

Gary and I had Aaron with us at Sam’s on Monday.  I was checking out the asparagus when Aaron walked up to me with a bouquet of flowers, his face all smiles while Gary watched in the background.  Gary had pointed out the bin of flowers to Aaron, and Aaron instantly wanted to buy me some.  We’ve watched those Iris’s this week, some blooms falling off as they wilt while other buds burst into bloom.

Again, just like Aaron.  We wait for him to grow……hopefully to bloom……and in the mean time we enjoy him and his unique, colorful life that we see every day. 

Candy and wrappers…….buds and blooms……it’s all part of what makes life with Aaron both challenging and beautiful.   

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The Hanging Sunflowers

It’s a little hard to believe that after 17……..yes, that’s 17!!!…….years of living in Kansas, this is the first year that we have planted sunflowers.  I have no idea why we waited so long, but maybe that long wait is one reason that I am enjoying them so much.  And as always, I’m learning more from our sunflowers than just the mechanics of how they grow.  God speaks to me through my growing things, including through my own growing…..which is often a little painful, I’ll admit.

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Did you know that sunflowers follow the sun?  Maybe that’s a “duh” comment to most of you, but I noticed how our sunflowers………while they were beginning to bloom and before the big flowers opened…….were leaning one way in the morning and then leaning another way in the evening.  In my reading about sunflowers, I discovered that they literally do follow the sun during this “beginning to bloom” phase.  It’s called the Sunflower Dance.  They are the only flower, from what I read, that engage in this dance.  How amazing!

I was super excited when our first sunflower actually bloomed.  And boy, it was a huge one!!  We really planted these sunflowers for Aaron, but he didn’t really get nearly as animated about that first flower as I did.  Of course, Aaron rarely gets as animated about everyday things as most of us do.  Now, if it was an alien standing in our garden……

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Anyway, this huge first sunflower was just gorgeous.  So tall…..so erect……so bright!!!

But after a period of time, I noticed that the stunning head of our sunflower was drooping.  Being the sunflower novice that I am, I wasn’t quite sure what was happening.  I WAS quite sure, though, that as our sunflower head hung lower and lower, I was very disappointed.

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I thought sunflowers were supposed to be all tall and amazing for their whole blooming life.  I surmised, in all my “wisdom,” that this particular sunflower must have just been too large for its own good.  The stalk must not have been able to support that weight, and so it just could bear it no longer and it sank down in defeat.

But if you look at this recent picture I took of Aaron with the sunflowers, you’ll see that nearly ALL of them are now bending over.  And now I understand why!

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The sunflower hangs its head when it’s producing fruit!  Sunflower seeds are now ripening in each of those gorgeous blooms, and soon can be harvested.  On the actual sunflower, there are many individual flowers……and behind each flower, there is a seed.  But the seed doesn’t ripen until the head is lowered.

This was a very meaningful discovery to me, and it’s for more reason than just no longer being worried about my droopy sunflowers.  It’s meaningful to me because of ME.  I’ve been a little droopy lately……weighed down by this and by that, as all of us are sometimes prone to be in this life.  I haven’t been sleeping well, and not sleeping at night is when my concerns escalate into giants……giants that like to follow me around all day.

Have you ever been there?  Bothered by both small and large issues in life?  Questioning why things are what they are?  Sad?  Lonely?  Exhausted?  Just weighed down, like my sunflowers……bending low under the weight of stress and worry.

Yesterday morning, I did what I often do when I am feeling overwhelmed……I asked God to meet with me.  Not that He needs an invitation, but there are times that I really know I need to reach out to Him and ask Him to have a talk with me.  I opened my Bible, looked down, and found myself staring at Psalm 77.  Wow!!!  How perfect!!!  Read a few portions of this Psalm:

“In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; In the night my hand was stretched out without weariness; my soul refused to be comforted. When I remember God, then I am disturbed; When I sigh, then my spirit grows faint.  You have held my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak.”

Sounds a little depressing, doesn’t it?  That’s why this Psalm is called a Psalm of Lament.  But that’s pretty much how I’ve been feeling.  Keep reading:

“I will meditate with my heart, and my spirit ponders.  Will the Lord reject forever?  And will He never be favorable again?  Has His lovingkindness ceased forever?  Has His promise come to an end forever?  Has God forgotten to be gracious, or has He in anger withdrawn His compassion?”

We wonder sometimes, don’t we, if God has just quit caring….or if maybe we don’t feel Him so much anymore because the deeper we hang low, the farther away He becomes?  Which then means that I’m responsible for God pulling away, and that’s really depressing!  But listen to what comes next:

“I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High.  I shall remember the deeds of the Lord; surely I will remember Your wonders of old.  I will meditate on all Your work, and muse on Your deeds.  Your way, O God, is holy; what god is great like our God?  You are the God Who works wonders; You have made known Your strength among the peoples.”

It’s what I think about that can make a huge difference in my emotional well being.  Using my mind to remember God’s past goodness, His sovereignty, His Word, His hand in my life……all these things are what I need to ponder in the darkness of the night and in the light of my busy days.  God has, and He does, make His strength known to me when I need it most.  And sometimes His plan does include the burdens that pile on to me and bend me low.

BUT……and this a huge “but”……..when I am burdened and bending low is when God is producing fruit in my life.  Just like my hanging sunflowers out in the garden producing their fruit, God uses the low times in my life……if I LET Him……to produce some needed fruit.

And so my thoughts turn to Romans 5 and I am once again reminded that:

“……we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

Delicious seeds are growing out in my garden among my once dancing and then erect blooming sunflowers.  Birds…..and maybe Gary, Aaron, and me……will one day enjoy those mature seeds.  But right now, the sunflowers look a little weary as they sag and droop.  Yet if I kept the tall, bright sunflowers all the time, there would be no fruit.

And so it is with me.  If things were always fun and wonderful, I would miss so much that God wants to teach me.  I wouldn’t be a partaker in the fellowship of His sufferings that He tells us is the only way to grow and learn and be more like Him.  I would have no substantial fruit…….only outward beauty that matters nothing.

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My little issues are really just that……small and not such a big deal.  But they are a big deal to me in many ways, and it’s what God seems to want to use at this point in my life to draw me to Him.  And that pull toward God is best accomplished when I am bowed down, hanging low, and thus producing the fruit that He best grows in the drooping times.

So may I patiently let God do His growing work in my life, praying that I produce the fruit He desires.  And maybe…..just maybe, if I obey……that fruit will also be used to honor God, and bless and encourage others.

It can be your story, too, this time of hanging low and producing fruit.  May we all remember the hanging sunflowers!

 

 

 

The Shriveling Sunflowers

Aaron had been wanting us to plant some sunflowers for quite some time.  This year I finally bought some sunflower seeds…..giant sunflowers, no less…..and while I was off to Houston to see Andrea in June, Gary and Aaron planted the sunflower seeds.  They rim our garden on two sides and have grown, and grown, and grown some more.  It’s been fun to watch them as they have progressed from little seedlings to what they are now.  They are indeed giant sunflowers, living up to their name as we hoped they would.

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One day, though, Gary announced that he would need to move two of the sunflowers.  That’s because those two thriving plants were in the way of the sprinkler head that Gary had installed in that front part of the garden.  I was tempted to say that we should just throw them away.  We had enough sunflowers and wouldn’t even miss those two, I thought.  But something stopped me from making that suggestion.  I also admire Gary’s care of our plants and animals, sunflowers included; so I just watched one day as he carefully dug two new holes, gently took those two intruding sunflowers, and placed them in their new locations. 

It didn’t take long, though, to see that this move had taken a severe toll on both the sunflower plants.  They were no longer standing straight and tall, but instead had drooped dramatically.  “They won’t make it,” I thought one day as I went to the garden to pick some produce.  “The change and the move was too much for them.  We really should have just thrown them out.”  You can see how pathetic they looked.

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I could have pulled them up right then and tossed them in one of our trash cans outside.  But again, something stopped me……and I’m so glad it did. 

I’m glad because in only six days from when I took those pictures of our very sad sunflowers, I again went out to the garden and was amazed at what I saw!  Look at this!

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Both sunflowers had grown!  They had not only grown, but they were each producing the beginnings of a sunflower BLOOM!!

Sure, they still looked a little worse for wear.  They still carried some scars from being transplanted.  Some of their large leaves were still wilted, and many of the damaged leaves had died, shriveling and brown.  But if I looked up above the evidences of their past stress, I could see life……new leaves, new growth, and definitely a sunflower bloom.

A couple days later the bloom on the sunflower at the end of the front row, the one that had looked the most hopeless to me, had opened even more.  Other sunflowers in that front row were now blooming as well, but this one had beat them to it and was holding its own among the taller, less damaged plants.  My miracle sunflower!

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Have you ever felt like life was going along just fine?  You enjoyed where you were…..what you were doing…..who was surrounding you?  But one day things changed.  Maybe it was over a matter of time, long or short, or maybe it was sudden.  But you found yourself transplanted, in a sense, from what you loved…..from what was comfortable…..even perhaps from people that you enjoyed being around.

When life changes like that and we are put into the unfamiliar or the unwelcome or the uncomfortable places, then it’s natural to shrivel up as we react to the shock of such changes.  We don’t have the strength on most days, we think, to continue on like others around us seem to do so easily.  Don’t they see our pain?  Don’t they feel our sorrow?  And even if they do, they really don’t……totally. 

But the real issue is our own adjustment to our new normal, trusting the One Who transplanted us in the first place.  Why did God think it was OK to yank us out of our growing place and put us somewhere else……somewhere that we never asked to be?  Yes, we said we trust the Lord and we trust His plan and all that, but we never dreamed that His plan would be so difficult.

Those sagging sunflowers had two things that I had not counted on nearly enough.  Roots under the soil, and sunshine up above.  The roots took hold, and the sunshine gave strength and growth, despite the trauma of being uprooted and replanted.   Those sunflowers had elements fighting for them that enabled them to eventually perk up and once again grow like they were meant to grow!

Moses looked at the children of Israel in the desert after they had just crossed the Red Sea.  They didn’t like being slaves, but this freedom business wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, either.  They had just seen God open the waters of the sea so they could cross over.  Moses then reminded them of a valuable, life changing truth.

“The Lord will fight for you, while you keep silent.”  (Exodus 14:14)

Oh, how many times I have doubted God and His plan in my life!  Or if I haven’t exactly doubted, I have deep down wondered about why I am where I am.  I liked where I was before.  I liked how things were going.  But this business of having God yank me out of my place I loved……even the place He had at one time PUT me……is not all it’s cracked up to be in all the sweet devotional books I have read.  It’s just hard sometimes…..and exhausting.

I have felt like my two sunflower plants sometimes.  Shocked……tired…..unhappy…..positively wilted. 

But what God told Israel……what He tells me……what He tells you……is still true, every single day.

He will fight for me.  There’s something to be said for being rooted in Him, and for feeling the warmth of His Word in my heart even while I’m trying to adjust to this new place.

And God doesn’t need me to do anything while He’s fighting.  Just keep silent.  “Be still and know that I am God,” David said in Psalm 46. 

My keeping silent is sometimes the hardest part of all.  I want to complain…..to question…..and most assuredly to suggest to Him a better plan.  A better place in the garden.  A better will for my life.

But He just wants me to zip my lips and watch Him take care of every issue and every concern and every worry and every frustrating moment and every sadness.  I think that about covers it.

And God will cover it, too.  He will fight for me while I am silent, watching and waiting for Him to take care of the battle.

Then one day I’ll notice something.  A bloom.  And some new leaves.  I still might feel some scars and see some not-so-pretty leaves, but I will see that I AM growing.  I AM still alive after all the stress.  Not because I am so strong, but because God is so able.

He did the fighting for me while I just did the lip zipping and the trusting.  I may never understand the reasons for all the upheaval, but I don’t need to understand.

I just need to obey, and then to enjoy the new life that God gives me.  New blooms…..new chances to thrive again……new experiences. 

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An opportunity every day to look past the stress and into the face of the One Who is fighting for me with everything He has……and that’s more than enough. 

 

 

 

Lessons From the New Sprouts

 

Yesterday was a beautiful first day of spring.   The bright sunshine belied the fact that we may get some snow this weekend.  Ah yes, spring is a fickle time of year for sure!  By this time of year, everyone is ready for the cold, gray days of winter to give way to the bright colors of spring.  We are ready to listen to the happy chirping of birds and to enjoy the fresh smell of spring that is somehow in the air.  Snow is not something that we look forward to when everything in us is longing for warmth and for open windows and walks in the great outdoors.
 
I’ve become used to looking outside and seeing our brown flower beds.  They are full of faded mulch and the ugly stubs of once pretty flowers.  I didn’t get the dwarf crepe myrtles trimmed back last fall, so those tall dead limbs stick up as a constant reminder that they have had no visible life for several months.  Crunchy dried leaves are piled among the straggly remnants of last year’s growth.  Almost everything is dusty and crunchy, a drab brown and gray palette that does nothing for the senses.  It’s a scenery that is a reminder of what has been……….of what once was………. but now of uselessness and decay and death. 

 

Yet as I drove to an appointment, I saw what looked like the beginnings of buds on some trees.  I saw some pale yellow daffodils blooming beside some one’s house.  Later, at home, I went out with our Great Dane and while he explored the yard, I decided to do a little exploring of my own in one of the flower beds.  I bent over and looked closely.  Then I gently moved aside some of the dry and faded mulch.  And there, under the all the dullness of the mulch and the dirt, I found the tender green shoots of our garden phlox poking through the soil.  Behind me, as I searched some more, I found the young sprouts of our tiger lilies coming out.  Jackson and I walked to the front yard, and there as I did some more gentle digging I found the fresh green of my salvia showing among the dead growth of last summer.  In the corner of that flower bed, without any digging needed, was the unmistakable soft and fuzzy newness of my lamb’s ear.  From a distance, the scenery was still dull and lifeless.  But when I took the time to look, I could see the beginnings of new life.  I could see the hope of a beautiful spring starting to emerge from the seemingly lifeless ground. 
My journey on this earth is full of ups and downs………..the seasons of life shift and change as time goes on.  There are seasons of growth, seasons of calmness, seasons of joy……….and then there are those seasons when I feel a chill in the air, seasons of storms when the sun is hidden, and seasons when I feel that around me I only see the fading of what was.  The drabness of my current sad situation threatens to overtake my vision.  Looking out the window of my life only reveals a dusty mess.  We all have these seasons of life.  Sometimes the seasons change suddenly.  In a flash, we go from happiness to despair.  At other times the shifting is more subtle.  Days and months flow by, and we begin to slowly realize that life has altered and there seems to be no way to get things around us back to the growing, thriving standard that we once knew. 
 
I know that in the dreary days of winter, my perennials in the flower beds around our house are safe underground.  They are alive, though not seen, and they are being fed by the moisture that comes.  Even the cold, harsh snow will give them the sustenance they need in order to survive.  So it is in my life…….in your life…….as we follow Christ.  The seasons where we only see gloom and coldness are really the times that we have an opportunity to rest under the care of our heavenly Father.  Let Him nourish us with His Word, with how He speaks to us in the listless times through the Holy Spirit, and how He uses friends to encourage and lift us up.  The reasons for our dark times don’t even always need to be understood or explained.  Many times, God just wants us to be still and to let Him work as we lay buried in Him.

Then one day without even digging, we will see the sweet evidence of growth.  New shoots will be emerging from the gloom of our lives…………shoots of hope, of joy, of peace………the fruit of many lessons learned.  Isaiah may have been talking about the millennial kingdom in Isaiah 61:11, but I believe we can claim these verses for our lives as well:  “For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes the things sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.” 
 
Just as sure as I know that my garden phlox and salvia and lamb’s ear will return, so I know that God will cause His righteousness to prevail and His praise to spring up in my heart once again.  No matter what stress and change and disappointment we face, we can know for certain that God has a season of growth ahead for us………a season of beauty……….a beautiful spring up ahead.  

Lessons From the Praying Mantis

 

Gary and I had been out in the yard on Saturday.  It was time to go in for lunch, so we called to Aaron and then headed for the house.  My new mums on the front porch were vibrant with the colors of fall, and bees buzzed around lazily between the mums and my still-blooming Crepe Myrtles.  It was such a beautiful day! 

 

Just as we were ready to walk inside the garage, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.  I stopped to take a closer look, not moving from where I was standing.  I saw that the thing catching my attention was long and green and was perched atop my pretty Crepe Myrtle blooms, partially hidden by the growth around him.  A grasshopper!  An unwelcome intruder in my flower bed!  I didn’t appreciate him chowing down on my Crepe Myrtle leaves, or any of my other bushes or flowers.   

 

I told Gary about the grasshopper as I stepped around to the front of the bush for better aim.  I was ready to shoo that trespasser away!  That’s when I realized my mistake, thankfully before I rattled the poor creature’s nerves and forced him to fly off.  There sat a cute, medium-sized praying mantis.  Yes, I think a praying mantis is a cute creature.  Not only are they cute, but they are so very helpful in the garden.  They eat the garden’s enemies and they eat some of my enemies in various bug forms, so a praying mantis is very welcome in my flower bed.  I was so glad that I realized my mistake before I made him leave.  Gary and I showed our praying mantis to Aaron before going on inside and leaving our little guest in peace.

 

I’ve had similar times in my life…………….times when I’m enjoying the beauty around me in my life……….when things are bright and nice and going well.  But there out of the corner of my eye I see a perceived intruder.  Maybe it’s an unexpected event that is less than inviting, is even uncomfortable or causes me to struggle when I least expect it.  I recently had an accident that has resulted in a shoulder injury.  This injury is not only painful, but is just downright annoying as it slows me down and interrupts my sleep.  Because of this injury, I have had to schedule doctor visits, an MRI, and who knows what else still to come.  To top it off, we may not be able to take a special trip home that we have planned.  Yet I know that God is in control of even this minor situation.  This is an opportunity for me to see God’s good in the midst of my pain and disappointment…………to realize that I don’t have a destructive grasshopper perched on this branch of my life but a helpful praying mantis. 

 

We all have varying situations that are occurring………or will occur………..in our lives.  Sometimes it’s not an occurrence at all, but a person who comes into our life that we really don’t want to have there at all, if we were honest.  Whether it’s an event, though, or a person, let’s not be so quick to shoo it all away and be done with it.  If we stop to look closely and to let God work, we may find that this is exactly what God has given us in order to teach us some important lessons.  As believers, we know along with Moses that we can say, “The Rock!  His work is perfect, for all His ways are just; a God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and upright is He.” 

 

God doesn’t send destructive grasshoppers into our lives, even when we wonder about the things that we’re going through.  With God, His works are perfect.  He desires to teach us and to help us, just like my praying mantis was there to help me in my flower bed.  Lord, help me to take time to look at Your lessons and Your methods of teaching me before I rush in with arms flying, trying to brush off Your way of working in me.  May I look with clear eyes and see these times as helpful and learning times, not times to be done away with and hurried through.  Keep me still and quiet, observing Your miracles all around me and Your unusual ways of leading me. 

 

And thanks for the lesson You have taught me through this cute little praying mantis!

Lessons From the Dry Times

 

I was tired of looking at them……….the dried up remnants of my once bright and beautiful flowers in my two little flower beds off the back patio.  The extreme summer drought and heat had taken its toll on my flowers and had turned their former glory into black ugliness.  Long gone were the cheery yellows of the Black-Eyed Susans; the pretty pink of the Coneflowers; the stunning orange of the Tiger Lilies; and the soft purple of the Garden Phlox.  It was time to do some trimming………trimming that is usually left until autumn but was necessary now, in August.
 
 
Taking my pruning shears and my garden gloves, I headed outside and was soon filling up my pop-up container with the dry, dusty remains of my flowers.  As I clipped, I wondered if any of these perennials would return next spring, even as I noticed places that were already bare – where death had already sunk deep into the roots and destroyed the visible plants as well.  Two summers of severe dryness and burning sun had indeed claimed many flowers and trees and vegetables.  Even with what watering we did, nothing could replace refreshing rain and kinder, cooler temperatures. 
 
My garden shoes crunched over the brittle mulch as I bent over to cut away the deadness.  And as I clipped the useless remnants of my flowers, I noticed that even in the seemingly lifeless garden, some creatures and plants continued to live.  Here and there were weeds……..a chickweed growing against the brick border……….a clump of crab grass nestled in the dry mulch.  How do weeds manage to live even in the midst of such drought?  Around me I saw grasshoppers lunging up as I disturbed their hiding places.  As if my struggling flowers needed any other detriments to their growth, I thought.  Those ugly grasshoppers would eat any remaining life out of these poor flowers for sure.    The life that I was seeing in my flower garden was not the kind that I wanted to see at all!
 
 
Yet as my shears stripped away the dull remains of my flowers, I saw some color.  There, nestled amidst the blackness, was the welcome sight of a yellow Black-Eyed Susan; a bright pink little Coneflower; a softer pink Garden Phlox.  They were both a reminder of what had once been and the hope of what could very possibly come again next spring.   Dryness and death doesn’t have to be the norm, I thought.  There is always hope that the rains will come again; that the sun will be kinder; that replanting or reseeding can occur.  In the meantime, here and there a flower still grew, and the purpose of these seemingly dead plants was evident in the midst of awful circumstances. 
 
I’ve experienced dry times in my life.  We all have those seasons…………or will have if we live long enough.  Prolonged stresses and disappointments just suck the life and the beauty out of our very souls.  Days are long and nights are longer.  The heat of our worries and trials beats us down, blacken our outlook, and steal our joy.  There seems to be no evident end in sight………no welcome rain cloud to provide moisture or to shield us from the sun’s burning rays.  And in our weakest moments, we see weeds sprouting up around us………..weeds of worry, of bitterness, of anger, of blame, of defeat.  Or the hopping grasshoppers of our thought life, hopping to this conclusion or to that decision that is not in God’s plan for us at all. 
 
David experienced these desert seasons as he ran from King Saul.  Here was the future king of Israel, appointed by God, yet hiding in caves and running for his life.  He was falsely accused, thrust out, tormented, and unwanted – with no end in sight to his suffering.  In Psalm 63, David poured out his heart:  “O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for you; my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water.”  What did David do in that dry and weary land in which he found himself?  Did he worry, complain, become bitter, or throw a royal fit?  No!  He sought God earnestly – and not for what God could do for him, but because of WHO God is.  He thirsted and yearned for God, “……to see Your power and Your glory.”

 

How did David seek God?  “Because Your loving kindness (grace) is better than life, My lips will praise You. So I will bless You as long as I live;  I will lift up my hands in Your Name.”  (Psalm 63:3-4)   David took action!  He didn’t sit there and allow ugly weeds or grasshoppers to clutter his soul.  He used his lips to praise God and he lifted his hands in worship of God.   He opened the way for God’s beauty to fill his being even in the midst of a dry desert and a dark cave.  Just as my little blooming flowers shone in my ugly flower bed, so David’s praise and worship was a shining light in his own heart and to those around him…………a light to reveal the great God Who loves us and delights in our praise even in the dry seasons of our lives…………..ESPECIALLY in those dry seasons!
 
It’s up to us…………..will it be ugly weeds and destructive grasshoppers?  Or will we lift our hands in worship and open our mouths in praise in the middle of the heat and dryness of our prolonged trials?     (Psalm 63:5)

Lessons From the Battered Plants

On Thursday evening we stood helplessly at our windows and watched as the hail fell and the wind blew ferociously. The hail wasn’t huge but was relentless and seemed to go on forever. When the storm was over I stepped outside and felt very disheartened at what I saw – leaves that had blown off of trees and plants were plastered everywhere; branches were snapped and smaller twigs were scattered all around; flowers were shredded; newly purchased hanging baskets were twisted and broken; our vegetable garden partly flattened and mangled. I didn’t even want to deal with it after weeks of planting, nurturing, and then beginning to see the fruits of our labor that we noticed even as we walked around the yard and garden minutes before the storm started.

Today I stepped out on the back patio, gathered the hanging baskets together, and started trimming the dying and drooping limbs. I then turned to the two flower beds in the back to do the same there. And I noticed something amazing. In the midst of the damage there was new growth. There among the pock-marked leaves and shredded blooms were new blooms waiting to open, new leaves unfurling, and bees buzzing about. Life!! And you know why? Because these plants were not uprooted. Their root systems were intact, receiving nourishment from underneath the ground as well as stability to remain standing. Sure, they bear the marks of the storm, and some look very tattered and worn. But there is growth; there is an anchor in the soil; there is hope.

How many times I’ve been battered by the storms of life! All of us have endured the sting of trials in so many areas of our lives. Many trials are prolonged and seem to never end. I’ve felt beaten, defeated, discouraged, scared, tired. But through it all I know in Whom I have believed. My roots are firm in the God Whom I trust. Jeremiah said it very well in Jeremiah 17:7-8: “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is in the Lord. For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; But its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit.” I may bear the marks of the sufferings of this life but as I remain rooted in God my life can continue to grow, to prosper spiritually, to yield the peacable fruit of righeousness, to have peace and usefulness. I have hope as I anchor my roots in Christ – “This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and stedfast…..” Hebrews 6:19.

And so I pray that I will bear the marks of my trials and hardships to the glory of God. I pray that I will continue to grow, to bloom, and to bear fruit despite the scars that may mar my leaves. I pray that through the heat and fierceness of the storms to come I will remain rooted in the Lord with no fear or worry, being fed by Him, and looking forward to the sure and stedfast hope that He provides!