A Season of Rest
by Suzanne McCarthy
Adapted for TCC from an essay written for MJCC - Pittsburg
I am sitting here looking outside through the windows of the sun room at a “snow-globe” world. All the colors outside are the colors of winter frosted with a light snow that has fallen since daybreak, and now the snow is just swirling around through the bare tree branches in the backyard. The sky is a “snow sky” with clouds of gray filled with the promise of more flakes to come. We have a saying here in Western Pennsylvania “As the days grow longer the cold grows stronger” and so it is. The colors of winter, however, are restful to the spirit and the occasional blue jays, cardinals, and red-headed woodpeckers lend a streak of color as they wing their way from tree to tree. Winter should remind us to rest quietly when we need rest, knowing that soon it will be time to spring forth again. No matter how productive a child of G-d is, we need a season of rest.
As I am writing this, I have the Burpee seed website open in another window on my computer. There is quite a contrast between what I am looking at through the window in the sun room and the colorful window I am viewing on the computer! Seeing colorful pictures of summer vegetables and flowers lends the hope of Spring, warmer weather, sunshine, and it reminds me of Ecclesiastes 3:1 wherein there is an appointed time for everything in G-d’s world, and also Genesis 8:22 wherein G-d speaks of seedtime and harvest. It will soon be time to buy my seeds, and the supplies to sprout them and to carefully tend them until they are ready to plant in the soil.
We learn spiritual lessons from what we see in the world around us, and a garden is a great place to glean spiritual lessons!
Y’shua is the Master Gardener. He is so very wise and He wastes nothing we give Him. There is a time to plant, and a time to uproot. The wise gardener in Fall uproots all the withered plants that have been frost-burned. No matter how productive we are, when we have been “burned” or “burned out” or are weary and feel “used up”, we need to let the The Master Sower dig out the withered parts in our spirit. A gardener throws these withered plants on the compost heap, so by spring they make good mulch for new plants; the nutrients break down and go back into the soil. We need to let Y’shua throw our used-up things on the compost heap and realize that our old experiences make us spiritually richer in the new growing season.
Like a gardener preparing the soil, He picks out and discards the little rocks and stones that surface - He removes the stony places from our hearts where hurts have been deep. We let Him turn over the fertile ground of our spirits in preparation for what He will plant in due time. Turning over the soil in the garden aerates it, and makes the soil lighter. Oxygen feeds soil organisms that prepare nutrients for the new plants to help them grow; and we surely have the Holy Spirit to aerate our spirits to help what He plants in us (lessons from His Word) sprout and grow. A good gardener fertilizes before seeds are planted.
It is so important to teach our children and grandchildren early and prepare the naturally fertile soil of their hearts for G-d’s Word to be sown. If we wait until they are teens, saying, “I will let them choose whether or not to go to church, or believe”, we do them a great disservice and waste valuable time, just as a gardener who starts late does not get the best harvest of the season. If we want a spiritual harvest, we start with cultivating our own families as early as possible, not waiting until false beliefs of the world are suffocating them like weeds.
As I finish writing this, a heavy, soft snow is falling, sticking to all the branches and covering everything with beauty. It is so quiet out there! In my other “window”, I order packets of Beefsteak Tomato seeds and some other veggies for my garden, already anticipating some good “tomato sandwiches”, come summer!
The Curs-ed Net