A Few Minutes in the Garden

J and Mo helping me plant tomatoes

To be totally honest...this is a rewrite.  I had nearly all of this post typed when I accidentally hit the 'X' when switching between this page and another.  I was trying to look up a bible reference.  Now I am a bit frustrated.  Praying this post will be even better than the previous one! If it's not, please imagine how great it would have been! ;)

We have spent a lot of time.  Selecting our plants, builing the planters, selecting location, sprouting (and resprouting) the seeds, and planting.  Each morning I take the first few minutes of my day to water each of my plants.  I dive through the bushes on the side of my house to turn on the hose then I begin my morning ritual.  Checking on each plant, speaking encouraging words to them, sprinkling them with cool water, watering each plant twice.  To be sure that they have the life sustaining liquid and nutrition that they need.  Then I carefully pick any weeds or debris that have made it into the beds, out.  This morning it struck me.  Do I devote even a few minutes to each of my children every day??  Surely my children are far more important that a bunch of silly plants! Do I take the risk of "diving through the bushes" that are our lives to spend a minute? Do I pluck the weeds from their lives? Do I make sure that they have each been showered with love and words of praise and adoration?

I have obviously been called to be a mother.  Four times over.  Each of those little lives.  Entrusted into my body and my hands.  (Mine and my husbands, I suppose!)  We are called to cherish them, love them and raise them the way the Bible teaches.  God has entrusted us with his greatest gifts and yet we find time to focus on anything but the greatest gifts. 

"Fathers (and Mothers), do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Ephesians 6:3-5"

I challenge you and myself this summer to be sure that you spend a special couple of minutes with each of your children.  Pray for the time or the commitment or the motivation.  The love and the grace.  Because we know somedays, we just plain don't feel like it.  But if we desire, as Godly parents, for our children to grow and bear delcious fruit, fruit that will satify our King, we must make the daily investment.  An investment like no other into our futures.

Lord,

I fall to my knees at your feet today.  Thank you for laying this on my heart.  Please allow this message to reach the hearts of the women around me.  Be with each mother, Lord, through the struggles and joys of her day.  Bless her heart as she finds time to water each of her tiny blessings, helping each child to bear the fruit that you wish them to.  Keep a hedge of protection around the mothers that read this post and fill them with bountiful grace for her children.  We thank you for each blessing that you have entrusted us with and know that through you we are capable of loving and raising them the way YOU want us to. In your precious name I pray.

Amen