I’m really sorry….

I find myself saying this or just thinking it more often than usual. And I mean it. It’s usually in response to that “small” thing that slipped through a crack of which I find there are way too many for my comfort zone. The “small” things are not unimportant… it’s a birthday remembered a day late, a personal email that never was responded to, it’s the floors in my house with a multiplication of many animal furs, hay, and dried mud chunks; it’s not having the margin to leave early so a construction zone throws off the whole day’s schedule, it’s in response to the fact that my heart and mind feel so cluttered I’m begging the Holy Spirit to cut through with a word, a touch, anything to help me stay upright in the tossing season of spring- when schools and programs are all ending and things needing attention at a high priority all come at once.

Harvest.

The word came as I sat for a few quiet moments to read, journal and pray before a very busy day in town finishing up spring term at the college. I felt the weight of not keeping up with all the details I want in my heart to be able to. And the first voice I heard was from my past, it was the voice of condemnation. The message was clear: this happens every year. You don’t have enough margin. You do too much. You need to get better at cutting back your commitments, activities, and start learning to keep your plate in balance. You are out of control. You should know better by now. Other people have to suffer for your busy schedule because you’re not good at seeing how the commitments will pile on later in advance and you do too much.

Thankfully I’ve learned the voice of chaos and darkness and I know it never gets the final say in my life. Through the darkness of condemnation, the word floated gently over all the noise, like a ray of sunshine.

Harvest.

Everything froze in place as the word alighted with a thud, weighty for how light it floated in. And I got still. 

Yes. 

Harvest.

I have in years past had a large garden. My heart was never in it. Gardens to me are nightmare. They are demanding of your attention and they cannot be put off. If you don’t stay on top of weeding you end up with chaos. If you don’t water when it’s dry, it all dies. If it rains too much, too bad, all your work and the plants are saturated and the plants mold and rot. Then when you might have had other plans to travel or focus on something else, BAM it’s harvest and you get a year’s worth of produce in a week and you have to bring it in, process it, and either preserve it, give it away, or watch it rot because you can’t eat a year of beans in a week.

Why anyone loves this is truly beyond me. I find it incredibly stressful. 

And yet, even though in recent years I’ve cut back significantly my small plot of yard that grows a handful of plants that produce my favorite things, and I choose things that grow well in my climate so I don’t have to have super green thumb to keep them going, I love the beauty of the growth cycle too. I love fresh food. The planting is never that stressful… it’s really about the harvest.

This is what I see in my life. I have been praying, planting and nurturing, and enjoying myself the simplicity of planning and planting seeds. It all seems very manageable when you are in that place. In recent years I’ve gotten impatient with such scare early fruit, the plants that produce in a shorter cycle begin to give small manageable yields. Fun! But I was impatient and began adding miracle grow (praying!) and doing everything I could (learning, studying, practicing my spiritual disciplines) to get the cycle to move along as quickly as possible! And now this year, I am becoming overwhelmed with the fruit!

My dream is turning into… a bit of a nightmare at times!

Yet when I look around, overwhelmed with all the growth coming out of the ground, when I remember it is a beautiful harvest, it helps me find joy and laughter in the irony. It’s true: I am looking around me and ahead of me and trying not to panic because it doesn’t seem possible I can bring it in, process it, and honor the exponential growth on my own! It’s also very costly! I don’t have the resources yet in place to deal with it all! It takes labor, tools, experience and knowledge to properly go through a good harvest. 

I feel lacking in most of these things.

Thankfully God says that where we are weak he is strong, and that he is the one in charge of it all. I think he is chuckling at me right now like a child who kept asking and asking for a thing that in truth will be a handful to manage once it is given! It’ll require some parent help going forward!

Daddy I want a pony!!

It sounds fun, but a pony comes with responsibility and challenges on all sides. The thing will need care and feeding as well as probably buck the child off once or twice in the learning process. And yet a pony IS a fabulous gift for a girl of any age!

Here we are. I’ve been praying and begging God for a great harvest and he’s smiling as I now begin to panic over the extravagance he’s lavished on my life. I have to believe he will walk me through the newness of learning to harvest well. The need for help, and generosity! How can I spread this around and make sure that my harvest is shared with everyone who comes to partake!

I will continue to pray the words from Jesus in Matthew 9:37:

Jesus said to his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest, ask him to send more workers into his fields.”

They are his fields after all.

Father! I see a great harvest arriving in waves this year… please send more help to bring in and enjoy the fruit you’ve sent! Give me the right perspective to see what you give is always good, and to remember that it’s your harvest in the end. Help me to enjoy the process and trust you to walk me through the new seasons in faith that you will provide the resources to bring in the bounty you’ve given.