Today, I'm not sure what to do with myself. I know I should be doing school and I will, but normally I would be harvesting vegetables for most of the day. No more customers! But I still have vegetables in the garden. They didn't just stop growing, so now I have to force myself to go out there anyway and harvest what is left, which is a lot, and wash, peel, prep and freeze them for the winter. This may seem like a basic and straightforward task, but I'm actually finding it quite overwhelming. I don't want to let them go to waste, yet the work ahead of me isn't fun. I pretend to be a homesteader, but I'm really not, clearly. So we'll see what happens. It isn't going to get any warmer, so I have to go out in the name of saving us a few bucks over the winter. When I told my kids what they would be helping me with all I heard was, "But I don't even like turnips!" Sorry.....If it were just for the potatoes, it would be worth it, but where are the potatoes? No ones knows! The potato plant dies and then if you don't know where they potato plant was in the first place, good luck...so I have all sorts of potatoes underground because the weeds took over and now, to begin looking for those potatoes is also very overwhelming! Oh well. I will say, when I find myself in what could be a very real and dark place, I have to remember how God took me through the entire summer, even with the weeds. He allowed me to grow vegetables and provide them for so many people and He'll now help me take the garden down. It's His garden anyway, so I don't need to worry even about that.
I'm now re-taking a Bible Study from years ago called MotherWise. This study was the one that transformed my marriage and so many marriages of friends around me. I'm doing it with just a small group of women and this is week 4 of the study where we begin to study marriage from a Biblical perspective, starting in Genesis 2. I was brought back to the many verses God gave me in the Spring when I was first considering the planting of a garden. Some of them came from Genesis 2, so it was neat to be studying marriage and yet be reminded of the garden verses, too.
Before God created Adam there was no bush, no plant, no rain, no man. Then God created Adam. Then God "planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food....The Lord took the man and put him in the garden to work it and keep it." These verses reminded me then in the Spring, and now in the Fall, about how HE is the ultimate gardener. He is the one who really planted the garden, even though I think I was the one who did it. Looking back I now see how He literally "made to spring up" each plant. Each plant that grew was so "pleasant to the sight" and they were all "good for food". My vegetables grew so well because of all the manure and rain that I now have "kale trees". The plants are so high that they are past my waist when I walk by them to harvest kale. Unbelievable. And talk about good for food...so good! Adam's first placement was a garden. Again, I find this so encouraging as I'm about to go back in there despite the fact I have no customers, and I'm going to have to go in there and work it and keep it. It feels like a curse and it is to some degree as I'm fighting weeds that I'm sure Adam didn't have to fight, but it originally wasn't. So, I'm going to have to take Adam's approach and consider my garden more Eden-like. I really need to make sure my attitude is better and thank God for the privilege of working and keeping a garden.
More on the marriage aspect later, but I'm just grateful that God reminded me of these amazing verses even when I wasn't looking for them, when I was studying something entirely different, and brought me back to how He is the gardener in all seasons, Spring, Summer and now Fall. I pray He'll help me find the vegetables and figure out what to do with them all. Even that can be for His glory if I go in with the right attitude!
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