Harvest

This year we planted two rows of peas, some beans, a couple cucumber plants, several cherry tomato plants, a dozen peppers (of various varieties) two zucchini plants (only one survived) and one summer squash.

I went easy on the squash. The first time my mom planted zucchini, she planted 20 hills...and we were eating jumbo zucchini in every possible form for a L O N G time.

But I must have went too easy on the squash...while we had tons of tomatoes, peppers, peas and beans, we had zero squash.

None. Zip, zero, zilch.

It wasn't that there weren't blooms--there seemed to be new ones every couple of days. I tried manually pollinating them, but that didn't seem to make a difference.

I'm feeling like a zucchini plant right now.

Proverbs 27:17 says "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." Without a close Christian community, I'm getting pretty dull and rusty, not to mention spritually barren. (And feeling like I'm the prior verses--A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day...who wants to be a drippy, annoying faucet?).

I'm not sure what to do about it. My "self-pollination" strategies obviously haven't worked. Our attempts to find a church community here haven't panned out. while we've figured out ways to use our gifts, I'm not sure how much fruit it's bearing.

But then again, plants don't bear fruit in every season. Maybe this is just winter. Here's looking forward to spring...

Lord, sharpen me. Bear fruit in me and through me. Help me be patient. I'm weary of waiting...give me endurance and perserverance.

Word Filled Wednesday Psalm 84

I'm hungry, Lord. Feed me.
I need prayer. I need some good teaching.

This weekend God reminded me that the best way to get fed...is to feed someone else. Feeling lonely? Find someone lonelier than you and befriend them. Then neither of you will be lonely. Need some good Bible teaching? Volunteer to teach somewhere, and you'll get some good teaching. Need prayer? Pray for someone.

God's economy is totally upside down. The best way to get is to give.

So tonight I'll be getting to know the third grade girls...praying for them, reading the Bible with them, laughing with them, crying with them...being a teacher and a learner all at once.

Thanks, Lord, that your economy is totally different from the worlds. Equip me to both teach and learn, to minister to and be ministered to. Thanks for this opportunity, and may the investment have eternal returns.