A lesson from my garden

Several weeks ago in the middle of the night we had a wind storm go thru our garden with winds up to 60 miles per hour. The next morning when my husband went outside to check on the animals he noticed something different about the garden.

 

Walking over there to explore what it was that was different he noticed the corn was totally flat. It wasn't only flat but halfway down the rows of corn there was a circled spot where it was beyond just flat. It almost looked as if that was where the wind tunnel originally touched down. Running into the house he got me to go and take a look. "Wow!" I said. I had never seen anything like that before. The entire crop of  tall stalks of corn over seven feet tall was lying flat on the ground with the remainder of the garden and yard untouched.

 

After marveling over the loss of our corn crop we went to work. I figured I would get a picture of this later and share it with my friends on Facebook. That night when I got home from work it was dark so I planned on taking a picture of the corn the following morning on Saturday once it got daylight. Much to our surprise come Saturday morning, almost two days after the corn was flattened, we woke up to a big surprise. The corn was standing upright!

 

How could it be? One day it was flat on the ground and now it was standing once more. Was it really going to be okay? Would we ever see a kernel of corn off of them? Well it's been over a month now and the corn remains standing and is producing terrific corn.

 

As I stand and look at the corn as it stands tall in the garden I think of the lesson we can learn from it. Often in life there is something that touches down in our lives that knocks us down flat. We have the choice to stay down there or get back up and keep moving forward. God has equipped us to be able to do that no differently than the corn stalks He created. We should use that which God has supplied us with and pop back up in an upright position so quickly that world around doesn't even have a chance to notice we are down.

 

I don't know what it was that made the corn come back up but what we have is the Holy Spirit within us to help pop us back up. We have God's written word of encouragement and directions to help as well. Recently when a devastating thing struck my family, as my youngest granddaughter cried I told her we need to just trust in the promises of God. That is what will help up stand upright once again is trusting in the promises of God thru any storm.

 

Another lesson from my garden is the one from the sunflower that is standing near the corn. The lesson I learn from it is the fact that every morning it faces the morning sun and follows it thru the day. It would do us well to begin and end our day the same way, facing the rising Son, Jesus Christ. Truly this is another way that will help us to stand upright when life knocks us down.

 

Thank you Lord for the lessons learned and the beauty You have created in my garden both physically and spiritually. You are the best Gardener there is! I love you.

 

 

WTLB~~Deal with things, sweeping them under the rug only postpones the inevitable

February 5, 2008

I have to start out by asking this question, “Have you ever had the privilege of sweeping the floor for your mom, dad, or whoever?” Okay maybe it wasn’t such an honor to do but when you did it, did you ever try to hide some of the dirt you missed under the rug? Did it work? Did it make the dirt disappear entirely?

I think the dirt under the rug trick is something we’ve all tried and in the end learn that it doesn’t make the dirt disappear totally. Eventually we end up having to deal with the pile of dirt that we missed the last time we tried to clean. What we did before only postponed the inevitable or the to be expected.

It’s the same issue when we do this when we clean our rooms and throw everything under the bed or in the closet. We may pass inspection from a quick eye from mom or dad but sooner or later we have to deal with what is under the bed and in the closet. It’s not going to clean up itself without our help. I’ve waited for years for the dish fairy to show up at my house but she never has. The dirty dishes I left in the sink last night will still be there in the morning.

This is a vital lesson as kids you need to learn on how to deal with issues as they happened. Putting them off will only postpone something that is not going to go away. More important issues than a pile of dirt or dirty clothes are the things going on in your life daily. When you start to get overweight do something about it early before the problem gets even bigger. It’s easier to lose 10 pounds than 100. If you’ve suffered from sexual abuse don’t try to bury it in your heart, find a friend, counselor, youth pastor that you can talk to. If your grades are failing, don’t wait till it’s too late in the year to seek help and apply yourself start now improving what needs to be improved.

Your spiritual life and walk with God needs to be handled the same way. If there are things that are stopping you from walking as Jesus would want you to then deal with them. Don’t holdup the things that will never go away on their own. Maybe your attitude could use a pruning to be like Christ. Perhaps your thinking and the words out of your mouth need cleaned up in order to shine as Jesus would want them too. Waiting until you die and facing Jesus will be too late. The rug we hide these things under will be gone but the dirt will still be there. Don’t delay, deal with things today, God is there to help if only we would let Him.