It's the start of a new growing season.
With hopeful hearts and dirty hands, we dig--full of expectations of the harvest coming in a few months.
It's an exciting time--the start. We have all the expectations but none of the worries--no storms have yet come, no weeds to pull up, just a field full of possibilities.
In the field this month, we're just getting started. But in our home, we planted long ago.
Day by day, we're watering, nurturing, and caring for other seeds. Seeds of kindness, of courage, of self-control, of love of learning, and a hundred other possibilities.
Motherhood doesn't just plant seeds in the children, oh no. It roots new growth in us too-- patience, perseverance, unconditional love, peace, and a host of others.
But not all the seeds are growing yet. Maybe some never will.
Our kids will have issues and we will have issues, and our goal is not to eliminate them all. Our goal is to be faithful, this day, in our fields.
We can't control all the storms of life that will come, the plots we've been given, or whether or not a cloud of grasshoppers will destroy our hard work (reading a lot of Little House around here at the moment).
But we can plant, water, provide light. We can pull up weeds when we see them, making our home the strongest atmosphere we can provide.
And we can hope, instead of worry, about the crops on the way.
In the garden outside my window, the lettuces have already begun to sprout. They're weak and puny, but they are there. But there's no sign of anything else yet.
It's the same in our homes. Maybe some of the seeds we've planted will not grow in these little hearts. Maybe they will have to replant for themselves when they choose it and when they're ready.
You can't pull life out of a seed. There's no need to. The life is already within it.
The results are not always in our hands. But our responses are.
Let's devote ourselves to the little things today and let God do the rest. And let's keep anticipating the beautiful, strong harvest that we'll lay eyes on in a decade or so.
"To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves."
~ Mahatma Gandhi
