A Bountiful Harvest

This past weekend, my 17-year-old daughter helped me with collecting seeds from the many spent flowers in our backyard to share with friends, while I disassembled the vegetable beds. There were so many seeds that I was able to broadcast some in both my front and backyard and still have enough to share! She was amazed at how many seeds came from one Black-eyed Susan flower, much less one hundred of the spent flower heads. It was a bountiful harvest!

Not everybody likes Black-eyed Susan flowers. They can self-sow every year, and they do provide some lasting color with some drama to the garden. When they all bloom at once, they are an amazing show of color. When they die back, it’s a slow and ugly death. The stems and the flowers dry up and look pretty sad, but even in death, they provide seeds for the local birds and for the fly-by bird migrating south for the winter. I’m so glad they are in my garden.

This past Friday my husband and I attended the memorial for one of our church members. A young boy, a month away from being seven, died of cancer after fighting a year with multiple tumors on his spine and in his brain. Some would say that he lived a short life. Some would say that he died too young, and yet others would say his short little life touched hundreds of others. That’s what I say because he touched mine.

I’m standing on the scripture found in Psalms 139:16, “Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother’s womb. I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration—what a creation! You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, the days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.” The Message

How marvelous that we are like flowers in His garden. Here for a time, for a season, maybe more, yet God has written those days in His book. I believe that the days are written by God, but what we do with our lives fills the pages and brings the story of our lives into others to bless, to encourage, to lift up, to enjoy. Flowers die and so do we. Sometimes it’s hard to watch it happen, but for those like me who believe, only our flesh dies. Our spirits are returned to God to be safely ensconced until we can all be together again. Philippians 1:21, “we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.” NASB

Just like that one flower head that had an abundance of seeds, that six-year-old boy left behind a ton of blessings for years to come. His mom bravely got up and spoke of how her son’s life impacted many by his love for others and his willingness to share his possessions as he knew that he was headed home to heaven. He touched the lives of teachers and hospital staff, friends, and family and all who knew him in the year that he bravely fought his battle with cancer, and he won! What? You ask. He won? How did someone who was dying of cancer win? He is now in heaven, fully healed! No more pain, no more suffering, and cancer didn’t win. We will be like Him, healed and whole.

Philippians 3:20 “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.”

Being a cancer survivor myself, I look for a complete healing in heaven someday. Until then, I will bloom where I’m planted and continue to bless others with as much goodness as possible, for He has written all my days in His book.

The Well Worn Path

We were camping a few weeks ago up at a beautiful campground just about an hour and a half west in the mountains from where we live in the Springs. It gave us some much needed away time from the business of work, school and well, just life in general. We were so excited to set up camp and enjoy 8 days and 7 nights of fun, food, fishing and a sky filled with millions of stars waiting to be seen.

I was looking forward to being still and conversing with God. I do that best when I have some alone time, so with camera in tow, off I went on an easy hike around the campgrounds. Lots of wildflowers dotted the hillsides. The wind was blowing softly, but just enough to make the flowers dance out of focus of my camera. I would have to wait until the wind shifted or died down to capture the colorful beauties that blew in the wind, while at the same time, dodging the hundreds of ants that were scurrying everywhere I stood. If the world ever collapses in on itself, blame it on the billions of ants undermining the earth beneath us. I have never seen so many ants, but that’s another story for another time way.

In spite of the windy day, I shot some great pictures of flowers, the lake, the mountains and some rocks, but I captured a picture that hit me like a ton of bricks. It was a picture of a well-worn path that lead from the road to a loop of campsites. It was a short-cut, where many campers and pets cut through to get to their sites.  On any other day, I would have walked this path myself, not thinking twice about it, but it was as if God himself stood in the path and asked me a question, “Is this your life?” I cocked my head to one side at the question and looked a little closer at the well-worn path.

It was worn down to just sand and gravel. About a one-foot-wide path with wildflowers and grasses on each side. Ants, lots of ants were scurrying back and forth like it was a super highway. There were no trees or shrubs, just a few smashed clumps of grass and maybe a washed out section from the recent summer rain. “How could this compare to my life?” I asked myself. I stepped onto the path and began to ponder what this well-worn path meant to me. With each step, it was like a bright light was showing me the different aspects of the path and how they related to me. Here is what I took away.

I’m too busy. Like the ants scurrying around in every direction, my life tends to be too busy. Yes, the ants have a purpose and even the Bible speaks of their tenacity in their work, but they do take some time to rest, as I should take some time to rest as well.

I let others trample on me. Sometimes I can be a “means to an end” for people. It happens more often than I realize. It’s one thing to be available and a servant, but the more I’m trampled on the better the chance of burnout happening. This applies the other way too, of me using people just to get what “I” need. I need to be valued and purpose to value others.

There’s no growth.  God knew what He was doing when he created life on earth. He took 6 days to create such beauty and put man & woman on it to tend it, not just trample it down to bare ground. My life should reflect growth in its season. I don’t want season after season of bare ground in my heart. Allowing time for gratitude and rest is key to allowing growth to happen. When the path is at rest or no one using it, in time the seeds will take root, the flowers will grow, bloom and life will happen.  If I choose to keep going up and down the path of business, sure I will get to the other side, but no growth will happen.

But there ARE paths all over my life. When I got to the other side of the path, I turned and looked back at the well-worn path. Over my lifetime, I have left many paths for others to follow in my footsteps. Some are examples of what “not to do,” and others of directions of which way to “go.” Like a road map to avoid the pitfalls of life or how to navigate bad news, or relationships and all sorts of things.  My life will have a meaning to my children, my grandchildren, friends, relatives and even strangers that I pass on the path of life, but can they read the map? Are there visible signs that say, “go here,” or “stay out!”

And lastly, Do I welcome others? Our lives are to be lived to the fullest, but I doubt that means all alone. Hiking through the woods, it’s natural to look for a trail. A sign that someone else has walked this way before me. It gives me a direction to go, maybe a glorious sight to see somewhere along the way. If my husband and I are walking together and we come up to this path, I don’t direct him to take another route. The natural thing to do is motion him to come my way and stay together. Too many couples tend to “go their own way” and not venture in life together. While they may arrive at the same destination in time, it’s just better to go together to help each other along the way, to keep from stumbling or just to enjoy the journey together.

So what kind of paths can you turn around and see behind you? Will others be able to follow? Have you worn one path out so much that it’s time to slow down? I hope today you will seek the path that Jesus walked while He was here on earth. He has left us a road map in His Word and is longing for us to share it with Him. For His paths lead to glorious things to see! 

The Garden Sleeps

I was born on a warm January day in Bakersfield, California. The cooler days of fall get my mind ready to hibernate in my art room as the temperatures dip below 60. Yes, that’s right, 60 is my ideal low and 85 is my ideal high, maybe even a little warmer.  I have never tolerated the cold very well, so moving to Colorado some 10 years ago has had its challenges for me, especially in the gardening category.

Since being here, I have learned to let the frost kill the tender annuals and not fret over the garden preparing to sleep for the long winters here in Colorado, and I must say that I am truly amazed that such beauty can return after a few feet of snow and several layers of ice without any help from me! God knew what He was doing when he set the climates all around the earth. I just haven’t found “my” climate yet to live in.

The more that I live here in Colorado, the more I’ve learned about endurance, patience and rest through the example of my backyard landscape. You see, I used to be a person who ran from pain, sorrow, and troubles. I’ve had a lot of those very things in my life and it seems like every year that I have lived, I’ve had some of or all of the aforementioned three in my life. I’m a strategic thinker by nature and I can come up with a solution for most problems even before you tell me your whole problem. It’s the way I’m wired, but I didn’t realize this until just a few years ago. Way back when, my go-to solution to my problems was just to “walk away” or better yet, to run as fast and far as I could go. What I didn’t realize is that when I ran away, I took me with me, never learning the needed skills to face issues until the last ten years.

In the garden, as a plant grows, each season and every stage of a plant’s life has meaning and purpose. If a plant, let’s say a fruit tree, grows to maturity without bearing fruit, the gardener will prune it way back and heavily fertilizes it to force new growth that will produce fruit the following season. It’s not like the fruit tree can just take up roots and leave for another garden because it didn’t like being pruned or dumped on. The outside help of the gardener assists the tree in the right season to promote a bountiful harvest that will benefit many in the years to come.  It takes patience, care, and rest.

My life is very much like that tree in God’s economy. Sometimes I need His help to prune me back in my attitudes or ungratefulness and sometimes that involves a lot of crap being dumped on me and then being forced to rest for a season, but I know from experience that only good comes from His gentle work in my life. I don’t like the pruning and I definitely don’t like the “fertilizer” being applied, but I’ve seen the growth, the fruit and the blessings that my life has been to others. I have experienced the rest that comes when my heavenly Father has worked His will in my heart and I don’t feel the need to run anymore. My garden is a beautiful reminder that He cares, He notices me and He desires to see me flourish in all that He has for me.  In the times of rest, I trust that the next season promises to bring new life and the ability to stand firm in His truths and to see the beauty of His work.