Ask the question

Yesterday at Master Gardener training, we were treated to landscaping, basic botany and diseases. An action packed day spend with a very flat backside makes me a little crazy. I really enjoy the classes, don't get me wrong, but there's something to be said about doing lab's in school, you know, getting into the dirt or chemicals and seeing something in action. I'm pretty sure the reason these classes are taught in January is because all these people who are experts in whatever field they teach, are busier than one arm paperhangers in the spring, summer and fall! It's also the only time of the year you could get a group of people who admit to loving the dirt, to sit in a room, inside, for 8 hours straight! They don't even give us enough time to go out to lunch, it's 30 minutes to snarf down your sandwich and hurry to the bathroom. The really cool thing that I find happening is that most of this stuff I already know about. We were shown a picture of a tomato plant that had been sprayed with something and it looked all crazy. I knew in an instant what had happened. Mainly because I was raised in a farming town and worked my way through college scouting cotton for the extension service. I said, "2,4D damage" and the teacher, who was the state expert on diseases, looked at me and said, "That's right!" All the other classmates looked at me as though I had been a gift given to them from on high. OK, not really, but they couldn't believe a preachers wife would know something like that!


So, I am fitting in with my classmates, slowly but surely. I enjoy gardening and I'm sure I will learn so much from being exposed to these people and what they know. Master Gardeners like to say, "We don't have all the answers, but we know where to find them!" I like that. People just have to be willing to ask, to look outside of themselves for the answer and know that if we don't know, we know someone who does. Hey, that also sounds a lot like knowing Christ. You have to be willing to stop looking in the mirror for all your answers. You have to start looking outside yourself for the path that leads somewhere outside your back yard.


While I have to admit, I was more comfortable in Wilmore living around like souls that seemed to be going down the same path. I am finding that when I look outside myself to God for the answers, he brings them to me. He is building charter in me that would have never happened if I had stayed comfortable in Holy Wilmore. Challenges bring about charter. Going through difficult times brings you to the end of yourself so that you have nowhere else to look for help, but up. This is where I am. I'm not the answer to all the problems that are seen in this church, as much as I would like to be, or as much as I could be. I do however know where to find the answers, even if you don't want to ask the question. Jesus goes before us, to give us a path to follow, even when we can't see it. What we have to do is stop and ask the questions and then wait for the answer to come. Pretty cool huh?