Ever since I moved to Boulder County over a year ago, I haven't been able to make it down to my church in Aurora that often, however, thanks to technology I haven't missed a beat! I am able to download the podcasts of the sermons and listen to them on my phone sometime throughout the week. Well, there was a sermon a few weeks ago that has been resonating ever since I heard it. The sermon was based around the scripture that says, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." Special emphasis was placed on the word kept, by the end of the sermon the Pastor was talking about the state of our souls and how we "keep" them. He compared it to a garden and asked us to ask ourselves--- What season of gardening is your soul in? Is it harvest season? Is it planting season? Are you in full bloom??? He asked us to determine what season we were in and then to really work on honoring that season.
On a subconscious level I have been pondering this question ever since he posed it. And yesterday I found my answer! Yesterday was one of those great Fall days, where the temperature is just right! I had decided to spend this weekend down in Aurora for many reasons, but Saturday was just kind of a blank slate... I didn't really know what the day was going to bring. What it brought was.... gardening!!!! My mom had to be outside staining her fence all day, and I knew that was a task that I would grow impatient with so I thought... How can I help my mom out? I looked around and noticed that a lot of the plants that had flowered had now dried up and needed to be cut back. The tall wheat grass plants had long reached the highest that they would see for the year and were now drooping over covering pumpkin vines and other assorted plants. I noticed that her garden had zucchini and tomatoes that were ripe and could be picked. I noticed that my very own rhubarb plant had grown like wild and had been left unattended and many of the heavy leaves were now weighing the plant down. I thought, what a great chance to help my mom out and to get to spend some time outdoors with her and to get my hands dirty with the "brown moist earth" as Sal Paradise once called it.
As I picked the veggies out of the garden... I thought... am I in a producing, "harvesty" season? No....
As I enjoyed the plants that still were blooming... I thought... I'm definitely not in a blooming phase!
Am I in a planting phase? No. What I need is there somewhere.... it has already been planted.
But as I sat there and I cut back the plants that have already turned brown and I thought of how great they had been when in bloom and how they would be again next year... I thought this is EXACTLY what season I'm in!!! I'm in PRUNING season! Now, the next step is to honor that season!
So... since I was down in Aurora I thought, this has been such a great weekend so to top it off before the Broncos come on, I'm going to go to church Sunday morning! So I did, and again the topic couldn't have been better because it was about the sower parable. Needless to say we talked about seeds and soil. This parable talks about a farmer that throws down many seeds, some get eaten by birds, some are on such dry soil that when the plant grows it quickly withers because the roots weren't able to take hold, some seeds turn into plants that get smothered because they are planted in a garden of thorns, and then some plants are in soil that allows them to flourish and to produce many times over. Unfortunately in the past month or so I haven't been feeling like I was in the previous months where I felt I was on the cusp of major growth. This weekend though has given me hope that I can identify the thorns in my garden, that I can cut back some of the "dead" leaves, and that I can honor my pruning season so that next year my garden can bloom & produce a harvest!
