Starting To Harvest

The gardening process is an adventure to me. Bringing tiny seeds to life , nurturing them as they grow - it's my way of being a parent.

My hubs and I spent 4 days out of town this week, but one thing I couldn't wait to get home to was all the changes that happen over 4 days time. My sister, Carrie Ann, was caring for our home and cats while we were gone and sending me texts that kept me informed. She said I had a pumpkin growing! Well, it was actually another zucchini, but there were pumpkins on the vines on the other side of the yard.

Last night I harvested about 15 Northern Delight tomatoes, which I loaded into a little basket with a few zucchini and took over to my mama's house to share with my parents. They are not quite what I had hoped for this year, but that's the idea - to discover varieties that are suitable to the needs of our family. These were easy to grow, without a doubt, had nice short plants, lovely foliage and lots of fruit. The fruit are quite small though, and even with plenty of watering and nutrients, they tend to split open if left on the vine. I've been picking them just before they are fully ripe and bringing them inside to help curb the destruction. I have not decided yet if I will cultivate these again next year, but I will throw this out there to all my garden renegades, front yard gardeners and guerilla gardeners - Northern Delights are GREAT for small containers, front yards and parkways. They do not grow much taller than 3 feet and the fruits are small enough to be considered ornamental in nature.

This shot of my firstborn pink accordion tomato was taken this morning! As you can see, it's just beginning to turn pink around the folds. My mom is calling it my 'fat Mexican baby'. (The joke behind that being that I've been asking my husband when he is going to provide me with a fat Mexican baby, and he keeps telling me we will need to be more financially stable in order to start our family.) I'm telling you, this tomato is the most beautiful thing I think I've ever seen! I never realized I was going to get this much joy out of cultivating tomatoes. Will they grow in Africa I wonder.....?

All right, and now for the corn! I know you've been dying to hear about the corn - this is the Midwest for crying out loud! Start anywhere and drive for 10 minutes and you WILL invariably find yourself in a field of corn! But MY corn is white kernaled shoepeg corn, which is an heirloom variety from the south, and as I have mentioned before, it is taller than our garage! Who knew!? I'm an Indiana girl - I spent my summers as a pre-teen de-tasseling seed corn in the farm country with my cousins and grandparents. I do not remember hybrid sweet corn ever reaching these heights! The silks on the heads of the corn are also a gorgeous color of pinkish maroon that I've never seen before. So, so beautiful.

Well it IS Sunday mornin' kids and you know what that means! It's time to go praise Jesus! And He is worth praising. Even in the rough patches of life, God has been faithful and very good to us. The future stretches out before us, but I know we are going to be just fine sheltered in His presence.

A Moment of Thought

Today a poor bird flew into our picture window, broke his neck, fluttered to the porch floor, closed his eyes and died..

And yet somehow, the Holy Spirit used this to bring to mind a Bible verse that seems to be just for me.

Matthew 6:26

"Consider the birds of the air; for they do not sow, nor do they reap, or stow away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them (and provides care for them). Are you (precious children) not even more valuable (to your Heavenly Father) than they are?"

Saying and Doing

A few months back I was trying to enter a business arrangement with a small company where a friend worked. I thought things were going really well, but in the end, they fell apart. The owner of the company did some very strange things, including telling me after our first meeting that I was no longer permitted to speak to her directly and needed to carry things out through her assistant. She also strung me along, promising a presentation, assuring me that she was interested, etc. only to have a receptionist call me at the last minute and cancel the presentation for the employees and ask that I never set foot in their place of business again. I called another friend who had been approached by this same woman for web design and she assured me that she was treated in the same way. In fact, it seems that a lot of people have been treated badly by this woman - she had a tendency to approach people for things and when she couldn't aquire them for free, or if it might cause the IRS to question her business practices (which I assure you, were questionable) she would quickly turn into a nasty bitch.

Later, I saw on Facebook, a comment about this woman on the profile of the friend who worked there. This was the comment: "Ohhhhhh! You work for So-and-So?! She's wonderful and she looooooooves Jesus!"

So she loooooooooves Jesus, eh?

Give me a break.

A lot of people can say that. And maybe she does looooooooove Jesus. But loving Jesus and then treating people like they're vermin pretty much cancels out the 'loving' part.

I thought we were supposed to follow two great commandments? You know, I believe Jesus DID say the greatest commandment was "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength" but then he added something. He said "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Go ahead. Love God all you want. But if you can't treat other human beings with the same love you've been shown - or if you're doing something that you know is wrong and in turn, it causes you to treat others poorly? - what good is loving God?

You know what the number one thing I heard that the world hates about 'Christians'? It isn't that we believe in unreasonable hocus-pocus, or that we turned a philosopher into a god - it's the attitude of self-righteous arrogance and hypocrisy that 'Christians' walk around with. It's pride. It's bigotry toward those who can't see the truth in the same way that they do.

Believers, we were not given an option on who to love. We don't get to choose to 'love' the people around us that we hold most dear. The people we were commanded to show love to are those that hate us, those who are our enemies, those who are not worthy of loving.

Don't walk around claiming to love Jesus if you haven't even figured out how to be nice to the poor girl at the cash register, or the harrassed server at the restaurant.

And for God's sake, take that damn Jesus fish off of your car.

In Need Of Refreshing

I got an unwelcome shock this morning when I got a message from the bank saying that our mortgage payment is increasing by just under $100. You can imagine my panic! I'm still not working, although the Woodwind and Brasswind DID offer me employment a month ago. They just haven't been given the greenlight to start the next training course for their catalog telephone reps. from their corporate offices in Oregon yet. I don't know when I will be actually receiving a paycheck. I also lost 2 piano students this month - down to 8 - and had to request 6 more months of forebearance on my student loans. Yikes! 2011 is starting out with a lot of demands!

But I've had 19 sales total on my webshop, and a lot of interest and questions and people offering promotions, and that makes me feel very hopeful that my handmade business may actually turn into something worthwhile someday.

I also had to remind myself that one of God's names is Jehovah Jireh - God my Provider!

Without getting too weird and overly-spiritual, I had this thought this morning. A lot of evangelical Christians have forgotten that God has many, many names. I love the Hebrew names for God, and almost no one preaches sermons about them anymore! Yahweh (God's proper name), Elohim (God with Authority), El Shaddai (mighty one), Adonai (master) , El Elyon (most high) , Avinu (Our Father), El Roi (God who sees me), and many more! All describe a different facet of God's character, and show us what we believe in. There are also many Anglicanized descriptions, such as Jehovah-jireh (provider), Jehoveh-nissi (my banner), Jehoveh-shammah (God is there) and four or five others that I can't remember at this exact moment.

I struggled for so many years with this terrible description of God that I was force-fed at a fundamental Baptist school. It left me feeling conflicted because it offered none of these facets. I was just expected to recite a prayer and be good for the rest of my life as a means of 'fire insurance'. But what was I supposed to do when I was sick? What about those years that my mom was sick and close to death and I was sinking into depression and becoming suicidal just like she was? Was I just supposed to be good and hope for the best when I was struggling with finances and going to school full time and working two jobs? What about the friends I had who were Catholic or Mormon? Was I seriously supposed to tell them they were going to Hell for believing in the same Jesus I do, but not the same way? And what about the Holy Spirit? Isn't the Holy Spirit what Jesus left us with? Why do we ignore the Holy Spirit when He is our Comforter?

Don't get me started on the idiots who quote Scripture at a situation like it's the be-all-end-all to everything in life. I have a whole tangent for that.

I have been studying God's 'names' because they describe his character. And as a being created in His image, I want to know who I am supposed to be! If you have noticed my profile description, it reads that I am who I am, and I am still learning who that person is. I no longer accept the traditional way of being a Christian. People say Christian are bigoted, irrational, judgemental and radical. Yep, that's putting it mildly. I don't want to be associated with those kinds of Christians. I don't even call myself a Christian anymore. I am simply a Believer, and I'm leaving it at that. I don't have all the answers, I can't rationalize everything, and I don't blindly follow some ancient religious hocus-pocus. But I do know that I have been saved from myself if nothing else.