Confessions of a Peace Lover...
Ah, springtime in Ohio, isn't it...interesting? Lovely one day, cold, rainy and windy the next. (and sometimes the next, and the next!) Springtime is the season that reminds me most of adolescence. Budding trees and flowers, beautiful sunshine, blue skies, and then the rain comes - and if we're not prepared we can get caught in it! Sometimes it's just a light rain, sometimes a little steadier, sometimes a gusty, cold, lashing rain. The good news is, at some point the rain ends, and the sun returns, and occasionally, if we remember to look, there is a beautiful rainbow.
Springtime also has some "smells" associated with it. Some of them are wonderful, fresh, smells. Some of them...not so much! Especially if you live in farm country like I do. That too reminds me of those adolescent years. Every now and then we find our children (or ourselves) in a situation that makes us say "this stinks!" It is the stuff of life that we would not choose, and too often, when that "stuff" seems to fall too near our family we get busy trying to shovel it away. I don't want to smell it, let alone have it in my home, or even just outside my window where I catch a whiff every time I walk by!
That stinky stuff has a name in farm country, its called manure, and while I don't like to see it, smell it, drive in it, or - gag - step in it, it is a necessary part of the growth that a farmer desires to see in his fields.
There is a scripture in Matthew 13 that I've always heard referred to as the "Parable of the Seed". Several years ago, as I was studying this passage for a Crown Financial Ministries Bible study (www.crown.org), I had a light bulb moment. It suddenly occurred to me that this parable had less to do with the seed then it did with the soil! The seed never changed, it was the condition of the soil that impacted the growth of the seed.! (Of course when I turned to my NIV Life Application Bible I saw it listed as "Jesus Tells the Parable of the Four Soils" so my profound revelation was simply mine to learn, others had obviously picked up on it long before me, and I had probably read that very heading plenty of times...could it be there were some weeds in my soil choking out the good seeds?)
So there it is folks, one of the lessons I've been learning, "stinky stuff" happens! It's what we do with it that matters. God has given us a storehouse of tools with which to work. We don't always have to use a shovel, sometimes we need a hoe, or a spade, sometimes we simply just need to allow the "manure of life" to do its work in the soil to prepare it for the amazing seed that God wants to plant - in our lives and in the lives of the adolescents that we love. And always, when we smell "it", we just need to ask God to send His rain before we make any attempt to handle it on our own. And if we do, the rain will come, the Son will return, and, if we remember to look, there just might be a beautiful rainbow!
Until next time...
Beth
Springtime also has some "smells" associated with it. Some of them are wonderful, fresh, smells. Some of them...not so much! Especially if you live in farm country like I do. That too reminds me of those adolescent years. Every now and then we find our children (or ourselves) in a situation that makes us say "this stinks!" It is the stuff of life that we would not choose, and too often, when that "stuff" seems to fall too near our family we get busy trying to shovel it away. I don't want to smell it, let alone have it in my home, or even just outside my window where I catch a whiff every time I walk by!
That stinky stuff has a name in farm country, its called manure, and while I don't like to see it, smell it, drive in it, or - gag - step in it, it is a necessary part of the growth that a farmer desires to see in his fields.
There is a scripture in Matthew 13 that I've always heard referred to as the "Parable of the Seed". Several years ago, as I was studying this passage for a Crown Financial Ministries Bible study (www.crown.org), I had a light bulb moment. It suddenly occurred to me that this parable had less to do with the seed then it did with the soil! The seed never changed, it was the condition of the soil that impacted the growth of the seed.! (Of course when I turned to my NIV Life Application Bible I saw it listed as "Jesus Tells the Parable of the Four Soils" so my profound revelation was simply mine to learn, others had obviously picked up on it long before me, and I had probably read that very heading plenty of times...could it be there were some weeds in my soil choking out the good seeds?)
So there it is folks, one of the lessons I've been learning, "stinky stuff" happens! It's what we do with it that matters. God has given us a storehouse of tools with which to work. We don't always have to use a shovel, sometimes we need a hoe, or a spade, sometimes we simply just need to allow the "manure of life" to do its work in the soil to prepare it for the amazing seed that God wants to plant - in our lives and in the lives of the adolescents that we love. And always, when we smell "it", we just need to ask God to send His rain before we make any attempt to handle it on our own. And if we do, the rain will come, the Son will return, and, if we remember to look, there just might be a beautiful rainbow!
Until next time...
Beth
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