Garden Machine

This here is a rototiller! Not just any rototiller either. This bad boy belonged to my Grandaddy. He used it for years! Some time ago, he gave it to my Dad, who also used it for years. The glorious thing about this tiller is it works, like a charm. You do the checking of gas, oil, choke, and pull the rope and BAM, it's starts. 

Now, it's been a few years since it's been used, but Preacher man and I held out hope. He checked everything, gave it a pull, and nothing. Took the breather off, wow, that might be the problem. Cleaned that up, check the spark plug, pull the rope and do you know that within 3 pulls that thing started right up and went to work!

I then set out to make my rows and prepare a soil sample to be taken to the extension office so we can see if we need to add anything to the soil. I have planted onions, radishes and lettuce and I wait as they are working on looking their heads through this awesome soil. 

Did I tell you I had awesome soil? Of my gosh, it's beautiful stuff! You have to remember that before the damn went up 50 years ago, this was river bottom. Yeah, that's right, beautiful river bottom soil. Makes me want to go outside and roll around in it.

Gracie beat me to it!

The healing has begun. It's slow and it's not too steady, but at least it's started. For me, it's about going where you know you've met God before and hanging out. So if you need me, I'll be in the yard.

Tiller!!

I'm so excited!!! Look what happened at our house yesterday!!! A random dude showed up on a tractor and tiled my garden. OK, not really, this is Charlie and his tractor. I covent his tractor. I can't even put into words how excited I am about this! The smell of dirt, the seeds that need to be planted, the pure enjoyment of breaking ground it just sends me into fits of hap-hap happiness!

This area of ground will end up being a place I spend quality time in. It will be a place of work and rest. A place to get frustrations out on and from. I will be on my knees, bending my back, lifting and toting and enjoying every minute of it. 

I am glad that the season is changing and we are waking up from our longer than normal winter's nap! No, I don't know where my summer clothes are but at this point I'll work in my winter stuff. 

This is also how God is working in my life. I have closed down and sealed up all of who I am. I have placed a protective barrier over the ground of my heart and have let the leaves of a past life pile up and cover what use to be there. But God is getting on his tractor and he's firing that engine up. I see him coming down the road towards my closed down, sealed up soul and I can't do anything but stand there and watch.

As he lowers that tiller down, it sits on top of my ground, and he looks over at me with a twinkle in his eye. 
You ready for this? 
Surly we can do this another way!
He gives the machine a little punch of gas, looks at the sky and says 
It's perfect weather for breaking open some ground.

It's never easy, but it's always doable. Yea, it's going to require. . . me. 
I'm excited and scared and right where God needs me to be. 
I am enough, I am enough, just as I am, I am enough!  

Yard of Life

As I sit on the back porch, I see it as a snap-shot into life. There is hard work just down the stairs, into the garden, or there is rest if I stay put. When we take the chance to walk out into the garden, we find weeds, roots that don’t belong, big and small rocks, and soil that is holding it all, good and bad. 

Our life's are like that, they have things in them that take effort to remove. The rocks and weeds don’t have to be taken out mind you. They can stay right where they are and if we’re lucky, people will think the weeds are grass if we don’t let them get too close. In fact, it might be easier to just stay on the porch and watch from a distance.


God calls us, He woo’s us, to come down into the garden of our life and to get messy with Him. There is no doubt about it, life, church, relationships...they are all messy, but God will go with us and help us to sort out the weeds and rocks from the soil and worms. 

God will never take us anywhere we don’t want to go. If we want to stay on the porch and have people look at our gardens from a distance, that’s just were we’re at, and God will let us stay there. If we really want to see what’s going on in our garden, if we want to try to grow some plants that will give fruit, then we’re going to have to go down those stairs, into the yard and get messy. Intimacy begins here, in the place where we just come and we “be” with God in our messiness.

I invite you to walk out into your yard of life, and to start out by just looking. Come down off the porch and just walk around with God. He has things to show you if your ready to see them.