Don't Grow Weary

I am NOT a farmer!  My husband secretly wants to be a farmer.  Because of this, every once in a while, some kind of farm-like thing turns up on my doorstep.  When we lived in the country, the house we rented had a large outbuilding.  Most people would think, "What a great storage building or garage!" My husband thought, "Why don't I buy thirty chickens, a bunch of guineas, and three turkeys and start a bird farm."  The turkeys were never eaten because they conspired to form a break-out worthy of television.  All that was left of the window was broken glass and a turkey-shaped hole.  When we moved into town, I thought I was safe to put away the muck boots.  That was until someone sold my husband another mobile chicken coop.  Suddenly, I was back in the chicken game before you could say cluck.  As I tried to gather eggs only to be attacked and pecked by the chickens I told myself that I am NOT a farmer.  There was the calf in my back yard that woke me up crying to be fed.  There was the goat my daughter so desperately wanted, only to lose interest in days.  It spit on me every time I walked by it.  I think it secretly was in love with me.  We would get phone calls from neighbors asking us to pull our goat out of the flower gardens and bushes.  Then came the gardens.  Plants silently scream when they see me coming.  We planted a row of corn.  Only after it was tall, did we realize that you need to plant more than one row of corn in order for it to properly pollinate.  So every morning, I would rub the stalks of corn together to pollinate them.  I called it tickling the corn.  We did actually get corn out of that venture.  Then came the canning.  We had a fig tree, so we thought we would can fig jam.  After canning jars and jars of fruit, we realized that we didn't trust our canning abilities.  Botulism is tasteless.  We threw all of our canned fruit away.  I am NOT a farmer.  This brings me to our peach tree.  After planting the peach tree, we saw bugs and frost destroy one harvest after another.  One peach was the best we had gotten.  I had almost given up on trying to get peaches.  After all, I am NOT a farmer.  This year, frost came, but the peach tree still stood.  Bugs attacked, but the tiny fruit survived.  And now, as you can see in the picture, I have more fruit than I can eat.  If we had given up and chalked up the tree to past farm failures, we wouldn't be looking at a good harvest.  We could have stopped treating for bugs or pruning, since we had not seen any fruit, but instead we persevered in our work.  It makes me think of the Galatians 6:9 NIV from the Bible.  "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."  This world is filled with negative moments.  It is so easy to throw in the towel simply because you can't see any good results.  But just like the fruit tree, you may not always see the growth happening.  One day the situation looks barren, and the next, fruit has developed.  Don't give up doing good.  Our world could use a little more fruit.

Have a great week high-heeled warriors!