What a fun cat party we had! We sang "happy birthday" (can you believe that), opened gifts, ate cake and cookies, watched her get a cat "high" on catnip (her favourite gift), had cat friends come over for their cat food cake (socially distanced of course), decorated the house with balloons....it was quite the day. I can only say, I am quite certain I NEVER went to such lengths for my own kids. What the pandemic has done to me and my state of mind.....it's inexplicable really. I'm kind of glad she's the only cat we will do that for and I promise it won't be an annual thing....But, again, I'm always trying to get in the running for Mother of the Year and that was definitely a big points event, so I'm always happy about that....
Back to Deuteronomy..... It kind of ties in to the rest of my weekend. As I read in Chapter 1, starting around verse 19, that was when it really hit me how much I am like an Israelite. Moses often recounts the history of the Israelites, "Then we set out...and we came to Kadesh-barnea..." Ah, Kadesh-barnea.....this is the place where I realized how much I identify as "Israelite". Moses said, "And I said to you....'See, the Lord your God has set the land before you. Go up, take possession, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has told you. Do not fear or be dismayed. Then all of you came near me and said, 'Let us send men before us, that they may explore the land for us and bring us word again of the way by which we must go up and the cities into which we shall come.'"
This is me exactly. I come to a situation, a decision, an opportunity - my Kadesh-barnea - and God tells me, "Here is the land set before you. Go up, take possession! Do not fear or be dismayed!" But.....I then say, "Well, let's send some spies and just make sure it's ok. Because, I really don't believe you." Let me give a recent example. I have been praying a lot about how I can contribute to our income. My old excuse of babies and toddlers, I just found out, doesn't work anymore. Those babies are nearly 9 and up. When did that happen?! I don't have a "job", per se, outside of the home. Being a teacher again in a classroom would kill me. I have NO interest EVER doing that again. I joke that I don't like kids. God, in His amazing mercy, has given me many cool opportunities over the last few years to make some extra income with the microgreens, the grapes, the vine trees, so He's been answering that prayer already, but I feel like there is even more I could do. Why? It isn't money for a vacation, although maybe one day it will be. It's more that I would like to help pay for things we really need - the renovations that so desperately need to be done, repairs that always unexpectedly show up, etc.
When the pandemic hit we decided to grow a garden for our family. I sold a few vegetables, but nothing crazy. We ordered a couple books, but I didn't read them, I was too overwhelmed by all their ideas on how to make the garden profitable. I just wanted food for ourselves. My husband read them though. But then, as Spring started to approach, something made me pick one of the books up and as I read, I started to get excited about the garden again, but this time as my next opportunity to make some income. Almost instantly, fear gripped me. I told my husband how I was kind of excited about making the garden more profitable by implementing the ideas I'd been reading about and my husband was totally on board, but then I did what the Israelites did, "We should send some spies...." When the Israelites suggested that, I believe that was just an excuse Even when the spies came back with all the proof that the land was awesome and theirs for the taking and said, "It is a good land that the Lord our God is giving us", they still "murmured" in their tents, "Because the Lord hated us he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us. Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying, 'The people are greater and taller then we. The cities are great and fortified up to heaven. And beside, we have seen the sons of the Anakin there."
What?! Joshua and Caleb said, "No! It's an awesome land! We can do this!" But the other guys said, "No way - we're grasshoppers. They're big. We're small. Impossible." Moses had said, "Let's do this!" They said, "I don't think so." I think the spy thing was just a way of stalling. They never trusted Moses. They always challenged his leadership and this was just another way of undermining his authority. It was their pattern. It wouldn't have mattered what the spies said when they came back. They had already decided they weren't strong enough.
So it is with me. The land is literally being given to me, prime Niagara land, ideal for growing vegetables and all things amazing. I had a little excitement in me at first to take the challenge on and I took the idea to my husband who was all in and then the fear set in. My husband was so frustrated with me as he watched me list all the reasons why I suddenly couldn't do it, "What if the vegetables don't grow, what if I can't fill orders, what if you get too busy to help me, what if, what if, what if......." I was just like the Israelites, my heart was melting, the Anakim were greater and taller than me, the cities were great and fortified up to heaven in my mind.....But then I read this passage last week and I immediately saw I was doing it again. Instead of listening to my Moses husband, I was challenging him in a way. Instead of believing him when he believed we could do this, I was falling into my old patterns of fear. I had to shake my head, identify the lies and then suddenly I realized how silly it all was. The land was being given to me, I just had to go up and possess it. The challenge was huge, but why couldn't I do it?! Here I was asking for a way to supplement our income and then God opens my eyes and gives me an idea and instead of embracing it, I became afraid of it. This passage helped me see the irony.
So, this past week, I went to my husband as a pathetic Israelite and I told him what I had read and how much I could relate to those people. I also told him how much I saw him as Moses in my life and that instead of always challenging him I wanted to listen to his encouragement. He just sat there saying, "Finally! You get it!" The next step was to quickly act on what we were thinking before I changed my mind, so all day Saturday and I mean all day, we planned the garden. We are trying to grow on a larger more profitable scale, no longer just for ourselves, though that is part of the plan, too. Now we have to do some serious soil amending in order to grow better vegetables. My last year's garden was ok, but the soil was awful. We're going to bring in the big guns. We'll get it tested and add the appropriate compost and manure to get it to the ideal growing soil. Then we are planning our beds to grow bigger and better vegetables with more weed control, landscape cloth, hoop houses.....it's going to be crazy. Then, if all goes well, I may be able to sell boxes on a weekly basis. One farmer we know of sells 200+ boxes a week and that is his living. We aren't there yet. We are thinking about 20-25 a week, but one step at a time...
I love how this passage was on land - "See, the Lord your God has set the land before you. Go up, take possession as the Lord the God of your fathers, has told you. Do not fear or be dismayed." That's what I'm going to do. I'm taking possession of the land. He's given it to me. He knows I'm afraid and dismayed, but I'm going to believe Him when He says, "Don't be afraid or dismayed." Why would He even say that if it wasn't a possibility that I would be potentially afraid? I have to just go up and take it. I'm always looking for ways to keep my kids occupied in a productive way - this will definitely keep us all busy. We have so many ideas. The kids want to sell bunnies, lemonade, kittens....all at the side of the road. It will be a fun summer I think. They aren't afraid, why am I?
Moses gave them one more chance, "Do not be in dread or afraid of them." I spend a lot of my time hanging out with dread - love dread. It's nicer to say you dread something because then it isn't as sinful as fear. But what I've learned is that dread is a cousin of fear, so it's the same thing and it is sin, too. Moses said, "The Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, AND in the wilderness, where YOU HAVE SEEN, how the Lord your God CARRIED YOU, as a man carried his son (what an awesome image!), ALL THE WAY THAT YOU WENT, until you came to this place. Yet IN SPITE OF THIS, you did not believe the Lord your God (see, I don't believe my husband sometimes), who went BEFORE YOU, in the way to seek you out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in the cloud by day, to show you what way you should go." Because of their fear, their rebellion, their sin, "not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers". This is NOT what I want to happen to me. I don't want to miss out on the good land He promises to give me all because of fear and DREAD. If the Israelites had just looked back and reflected for one second on all that God had done for them, they would have seen how He carried them - as a man carries his son! He's done this for me! He's carried me, gone before me, fought for me....all the way that I've gone, fire by night, cloud by day. By not trusting God and my husband, I could miss out on all that God wants to give me.
In light of this - I'm starting to tell people here and there what I'm up to. In a way, it's being accountable to others so that I follow through on all my big talk. Today we'll order the seeds and attempt transplants. Then the garden prep starts and seeds go in in May and June. I'm still a little nervous as my garden was pretty lame last year, so I don't have a lot of faith in me, but I don't have to trust myself, I need to just trust God who has put these ideas in my head. He'll carry me and it's His job to make the garden grow......Once again, a really long way to put it all into words, but that's just how I operate. It helps me to articulate it all on "paper". As I read today, "writing is a way of opening our eyes to see what we otherwise do not see." Now, I see!
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