Good Dirt

Since moving, I've been at a loss with what to do with our food scraps. If you've saved your food scraps for over ten years to feed to chickens, it feels like sacrilege to throw them in the garbage. I hoped to make a nice compost area, you know with a fence and all, but I just wasn't getting to that project. I would cringe every time I threw food scraps away, and finally decided I'd just make a compost pile until I got something better in place. The previous owners piled their fall leaves under some of the large pines. That seemed like a good place to start.

I don't know how long they were piling them there. The yard has roughly a dozen large maples, so I imagine (and will soon experience) the fall leaves are abundant. I just threw the scraps on top. After a few days of this, flies found the pile, and I decided I should turn the pile over some. I got a nice surprise. The top maybe three feet is pretty much leaves that have barely begun to break down, but under that was beautiful rich soil.

I miss my garden. I have enjoyed shopping at our local farmers market, but it just isn't the same (although a lot less work) as putting the seeds into good dirt, tending them, and watching them produce. I relish the fruit of my garden, but I've come to understand that although it is work and sometimes frustrating work, I really do enjoy the process.

In the last few weeks in my reading, in small groups, at the church I attend, and even in one I recently visited the comparison of faith and life in Christ to the gardening process has come up over and over again. Our faith is often referred to as a small seed. It needs good dirt. It needs nurturing. It needs protecting. It will grow. It will produce fruit, but it is a process.

I've been impatient with the process. The verse that has been on my mind the last couple weeks is James 5:7-8.

Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.

Before I probably would have read the "coming of the Lord" as the second coming, but now I am seeing that to be more of the coming of the Lord in my heart. I can't make the tiny seed of faith in my heart grow, but I can nurture it while I wait patiently for it to grow and produce fruit. Like gardening it may be hard, painful, and sometimes frustrating, but it is a beautiful process.