I am walking by faith every day. I have no choice. We are selling the harvest boxes slowly but surely, but not as fast as I want them sold! What is oddly taking off is the sale of my vinecrafts. I have a lot of orders! I'm so amazed! I have taken to going door to door to sell the harvest boxes just like a vacuum salesperson. And, what is amazing, is that 1) I love doing it and 2) people love listening to the farmer up the street! I even sold a couple doing that. My sis-in-law helped me make a flyer and that really helped as I had something to hand over to people.
I also have discouraging times though. It seems, big surprise, that you only learn the gardening business by making mistakes. Why does it have to be that way!? I knew I had to "harden off" the plants before they went outside permanently, but I didn't know they couldn't be out there for hours in the sun, so sadly, in the hardening off process, a few of the little seedlings passed on to plant heaven. I was SOOOOO sad! After all that work! However, lesson learned, and today they won't go out for hours, but instead a much shorter amount of time and not in direct sun. So annoying. I can replant them, so it's not a huge loss, but still frustrating.
I'm in Joshua now and every time I open up the Word, I just beg God to give me something, to encourage me, to speak to me in some way. I'm never disappointed. Today it was Joshua 5. After crossing the Jordan miraculously they ended up in a place called Gilgal and it says "they kept the Passover". The next day, "on that very day, they ate of the produce of the land....And the manna ceased the day after they ate of the produce of the land. And there was no longer manna for the people of Israel, but they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year."
This passage is amazing. After years and years, 40 to be exact, the manna stopped. Years and years of faithfully being given what they needed every single day, suddenly the manna was no longer needed - why? - Because they ate of the produce of the land. This has been my experience, too. God has done this in our lives whenever there is a need particularly financial. For example, braces. We've had all of our older kids in braces, 5 of them so far, and apparently there are more coming. We had no benefits for years and somehow, during that time, God provided the extra income needed and then when the braces were done, that source of income dried up. It's inexplicable really. This was exactly what happened with the Israelites, too. For years they had no way of growing food in the wilderness, so God had to provide in a miraculous way, but when they moved into the land flowing with milk and honey, they no longer needed the manna and it suddenly stopped on "that very day" that they ate produce from the land. I find this very encouraging because it tells me God knows what I need. He knows all about my garden. He knows when the seeds need to go in. He knows when the irrigation needs to be set up. He knows when the harvest boxes need to be sold and on what "very day" this all needs to happen. The fact it talks about eating the "produce of the land" is, again, very cool to me. It reassures me that we, and the people who have ordered boxes, will be eating the produce of the land when they are supposed to be eating the produce of the land, literally on what day they will start eating it! And in the meantime, God will provide what I need, the "manna" that I need. I have a funny feeling that during the Passover the night before, they gave thanks. Is it coincidence that the next day the miracle of eating the produce of the land happened? No. You give thanks and then the miracle is imminent.
So, yesterday, I forced myself to do this. I forced myself to thank God for everything that I didn't have that I thought I needed including the lack of orders, lack of irrigation supplies, dying seedlings. etc., etc. and by faith, I tried to trust God and thank Him for what I DO have including the many vine craft orders, the way I'm being taken care of daily at the clinic still, the meals that are still coming in allowing me to rest and heal, the beautiful weather....so many things. Reading this passage this morning was great and reminded me that God is sovereign. The final passage in chapter 5 confirmed what I was feeling. It says, "When Joshua way by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand." Joshua then asks the man if he was for them or for their adversaries. He says, "No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come." Joshua then falls and worships and the man tells him, "Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy." I suddenly felt like Joshua. It was like God was telling me, "You are standing on holy ground". What He is doing in this garden experience is my holy ground. He is doing something through this to sanctify me, grow my faith, grow my children's faith. I don't necessarily have a man with a sword drawn in front of me, but I just need to be like Joshua and lift my eyes and look. I need to look for where He's worked in the even just the past week. We've had so many stories and I haven't even recorded them all. For example we had a broken skid steer this past week. That is a terrible machine to fix, but a crazy idea came to my husband. Maybe it was just a simple wire that needed to be bypassed. It was too simple, but to our amazement, it worked. The garden was then completely filled with manure, 180 trips later, thanks to the fixed skid steer. So amazing.
So, just minutes ago, RM and I walked to the garden and we talked with God. We stood at the top of the hill and we just prayed for a Red Sea/Jordan River miracle. I took my shoes off even, like Joshua, knowing we were standing on holy ground and we worshiped.
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