Learning Along The Way

Back & Forth Living

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Some days are easier than others to live life joyfully.

Great things happen. A friend comes to visit. Lots of laughter & deep conversation. Lots of considering it all joy when we encounter various trials.

Wait! What?

ladder in front of 1312Yep. Consider it all joy.  ALL JOY.

This was my view in our front yard last year.

When I look back too longingly I can get mired in melancholy.  Woe is me don’t you feel sorry for me?

Well don’t.  And neither do I.  Yes this year has been a series of challenges that sometimes have challenged me just past what I thought I would ever be able to tolerate but I didn’t break.  Or shrivel up & die.  I certainly don’t want to be a tasteless pillar; immovable and unwilling to let go like Lot’s wife.  I didn’t quit moving forward.  And I’m here to tell you you can carry on too.

This life is hard.  So many things don’t go the way we planned.  There are disappointments. There are losses. And the very real pain that comes along with both.  I truly believe we benefit greatly by being real with our pain.  But even more important is that we get real with God and ask Him to use this pain for others’ good and His glory.

current ladderThis is my new view.  Same ladder.  It was my grandfather’s.  A connection with the past that I look back on with great joy and thankfulness in many ways.  It’s also a bridge into moving forward; gardening is something that I HAVE to do.  I must play in the dirt or I will shrivel up and die. (Not really but it sounds nice and dramatic. I’m the only girl around here…)

Moving forward, taking action, planting to grow are all symbolic of change.  There is really only One that doesn’t change.  All the rest of this existence changes.  So getting to spend time with Him in whatever Way helps you connect with Him best is vital for your soul to thrive.  Hanging out with God is vital for my soul too.  My time of deep connection is in the outdoors.  I am a Naturalist.

I still read the Word. Daily. I study and memorize passages.  I love to share with others what connections I see.  I am reminded of what I am passionate about: pouring into the lives of those who are younger than me.

That’s what back & forth living is really about for me.  Looking back at what God has done; through history and my history.  Looking forward to what He will do as He has promised. But also connecting the dots in the here and now while He is very present in our lives.

Back & Forth.  So good.  Join me?

What’s Eating You?

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I love gardening.  I’m not sure what part is my favorite; planning, shopping, digging in the dirt, watching things grow or enjoying the fruits (and veggies) of my labor.

photo(67)These are peas with edible pods.  Looking forward to watching them crawl up the trellis that will be put behind this box this weekend.

I also love when irrigation is free.  We’ve experienced much needed rain recently so these babies have it good right now.

I didn’t go out to visit the garden the past two days because of the rain and the blessing of time with a visiting friend.  But today this is what I discovered

photo(68)And my immediate thought was “What’s eating you?!”

Although I couldn’t see the trails of glistening slime I knew this to be the work of the dreaded garden nemesis: the Snail.

I can deal with weeds (I have learned much about my heart from weeds) I am an organic gardener so pulling instead of spraying is my way. I have dealt with a variety of pests by spraying a non-toxic soap on the leaves of plants.  I have also used marigolds and lady bugs to help with pest prevention with great results.

But snails!  Just ewww!  The best thing I ever did with snails was pay my sons to pick them, put them in a bucket and we took them to a pond where ducks visited.  Ducks love snails.  Isn’t that nice?  I don’t love snails.  I’ve used jar lids of beer (they’re gluttonous so they drink themselves to death) and I’ve also used copper tape with moderate success.  When their slime gets on the tape it actually gives them a mild shock so they back away from the tape.  Both of those you have to keep up with like weeding because the beer will evaporate and the tape will oxidize and lose its effectiveness.  This time it will be copper tape.

A thought occurred to me this morning as I asked the question of my poor peas: it wasn’t just what’s eating them?  What’s been eating me?

This past weekend my hubster and I attended a Family Life conference called The Art of Marriage.  The material was so worthwhile.  We had decided to go in part for the material but the bigger part was to meet new people from church and connect with others whom we had already met.  Good enough reasons to spend a Friday night and the better part of Saturday together and away from home.

When the event was over, the hubster and I took a detour on the way home and stopped by OSH to get a part he needed for a project.  I of course detoured through the garden center.  It’s what I do.

As I wandered through I saw lovely 6 packs of marigolds so I chose two different colors to inter-plant for pest prevention.  While I was wandering I was experiencing growing discontent; the opposite response for me when I see and walk among plants.  I didn’t like how I was feeling but I didn’t know what was up.  As the evening progressed so did my yucky discontented undercurrent.  I talked it through with the hubster and got to vent a bit: none of it was about him or us.  I felt better getting some blegh out.

It remained with me for 4 days.  Souring my days. Preoccupying my thoughts. Discoloring my experiences.  It was eating me.  Like a slimy, good only for ducks snail.

Unmet expectations.

I’d experienced the effects of what was eating me but I hadn’t found it out.  But God…when I had cried out to Him was quick to show me what was going on; like taking a flashlight out to the garden at night and catching the snails in the act!

I had expectations that I hadn’t been aware of and because they weren’t met, I was cranky like a disappointed child.

What are the expectations you have?  They might be for your marriage. Your children’s behavior. Your friendships. Your family members.

Can you name them? Identifying what your expectations are is huge.  Most of us operate from a set of expectations that we aren’t even truly aware of until something doesn’t work.

What do you do with unmet expectations?  That is a great question and one that is a real process question to unpack.  It depends. That is a lame answer I know but it’s true.  I’ve faced the silent monster many times. I’ve handled it well and mostly not so well.  This feeling of being eaten up is awful and hurts me just like it hurts the life of the plants.

This is how it’s worked this time:

I talked with a trusted friend who knows me well and holds my heart and thoughts sacred. My hubster.

I prayed asking the Lord to show me what was up.  He is faithful.

I confessed to Him my hurts and how I was allowing them to poison my thoughts about others.

I admitted my vulnerability to the small group we are a part of; that was the hardest part–risking with near strangers.  But that is the only way to be in real community is by taking risks to be known.

My process is still happening; there isn’t a quick fix for life, sorry to say.  But I know that bringing the issues to the Light is the Best Way of moving forward and learning how to deal with what’s eating me.

What’s eating you?

 

Resilient (or How Does My Garden Grow?)

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I had the most amazing gardening experience ever!  If you’re not into gardening, that’s ok, it wasn’t super technical but there is a great story so bear with me.

 

A week ago our son graduated from Biola University.  We don’t live in the LA area so attending his graduation meant traveling down a day ahead.  Since we were going to be down there anyway we had made plans to be gone the whole long holiday weekend.

 

We left on Friday afternoon.  If you’re a mom you know how much preparation goes into getting ready to leave; for me it includes surveying the garden for potential issues that might need attending to before leaving.  All was in order so we were good to go.

 

It was a wonderful graduation; made this Momma very proud!  But I digress; the event is not the focus of the gardening experience!

 

After returning home four days later, I went out to survey the garden.  I found one of the giant sunflowers lying down in the middle of the cantaloupe and watermelon plants.  It hadn’t been uprooted so I knew I could stake it up and it would be okay.  That’s not the amazing part.  I’m getting there.

 

I wish I had thought to capture this with a photo.  While it was lying there on its side for 3 -4 days, the head of the sunflower, not yet in bloom, had turned itself upward toward the sun.  The stalk of the sunflower had to twist itself around in order to face upward.  When I staked the plant up it was crooked and the head was facing the wall behind the plant.  This would be a gardening experiment for sure.

One week later, this is what the plant looked like:

 

 

I have gleaned a lot of metaphors from this gardening experience.  As another experiment, I’d like to hear from you!

What life lessons do you recognize from my amazing gardening experience?

I’ll share mine tomorrow!

Weeding in the Garden

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What is growing in the garden of your life that you’re not paying attention to?  We get busy with the day to day routines: cooking, cleaning, laundry, shuttling kids, changing diapers, cleaning messes, working outside the home, caring for aging parents, the list goes on.

Tending to the garden of our hearts takes time, energy and focus, all tools you may feel you don’t have in your garden tote.  In different seasons the weeds grow more rampantly than others.  When I have allowed the weeds to go, the work to remove them is overwhelming.  When I have been too busy to be consistent in tending the garden, it shows.

What to do to get back a tended, well watered garden (think life)?

1. Start weeding.

What’s there that isn’t helpful?  What’s getting in the way, crowding out the good things you want to see in the garden of your life?  Get rid of whatever that is for you.

2. Ask for help.

Weeding takes a practiced eye; knowing what is a weed and what is a good plant can be confusing if you’re not used to the practice of tending the garden.  You might need a mentor, a seasoned gardener, to help you recognize what doesn’t belong.

3. Adjust your priorities

Everything cannot have #1 priority.  Really hard for an over-achiever to hear, I know!  Learning to know the difference between what things are ‘have tos’ and what things are ‘want tos’ also takes practice.  In different seasons your time must be spent in particular ways and in other seasons you’ll find there is more discretionary time.  But the fact remains, a little regular attention to the garden is the better practice than only one day a week or once a month!

Start.

Who knows, once you get in there you may discover the Master Gardener has planted something in your life that you weren’t aware of!

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