Digging In

The other day while I was out digging in the garden I thought of my dad. I thought of him puttering around his yard (he is a senior citizen you know, and puttering is what he does in his old age. *wink). I thought of him working in his garden.

I love my dad.

He is trying to figure out this life just like the rest of us. I realize the older I get that he is just a man.....an imperfect man.......but he is wise. He is the kind of dad who knows the answers to most everything. Something about that makes me feel safe.

For some reason I am really longing to sit down and talk with him, just like we have done so many times during my life. I want to ask him some serious questions. I want to hear his answers.

I had a short conversation with my mother-in-law on Sunday in the hall of our tiny church house. She mentioned something about how the next 15 years of my life I will change and age, but I will not appear a whole lot different than I am now, however; in the passing of those same 15 years, she will enter her 70's. For her everything will be different. She was speaking more of the physical changes, but it made me think about how much potential for inward change is waiting in those 15 years.

Time is passing. I wonder if I'm allowing it change me for good.

The scriptures tell us that now is the time to prepare to meet God, and yet I act like that day will never come. When you are preparing for something important, you don't just lie around in your PJ's surfing the internet eating cold cereal while your children scream through the house.

No, you focus on what is coming, you plan for it. You study it out. If it is something you really want, you do what it takes to get it.

I have been praying and pondering a lot about who I am. What did I covenant to do in this life? Am I doing it?

Do any of you wonder about these things?

This is a pivotal year in my life! At some point we all hear the call to change.....to leave behind our childish things and grow up. Why is it so dang hard to grow up?

My heart is being tilled up, raked over and prepared for a new start. Just like our little tomato "starts" we plant each year, it may go through a period of transition. During this time the young plant is trying to take root in its new home. It struggles to survive. It gets exposed to the hot sun and the strong wind and often times looks like giving up, but most of the time it does not. It digs in.....deep, and holds on tight. It chooses to fulfill its purpose and it becomes fruitful.

Somehow.....I know I can do the same.

*photo taken from Country Gardens Magazine