itsawonderfilledlife

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 

I love those words, words that paint an image on the canvas of my mind. To garden is to encourage the growth of beauty. It is to motivate the life that only brings the best fruit from the plant, the vine. There is a sense of nurture, care.

But fruit, a good harvest, it doesn’t come simply from a gardener loving the plant, pampering it and whispering sweet nothings. Fruit growth requires digging in the soil, pruning, plucking and burning the branches that run wild, overgrown.

And that hurts.

Have you ever heard the lyrics to a song and wondered how a total stranger could write your own story? But then I realized that it is the song of us all.

It was one word that lingered in my thoughts for days and even weeks.

Break up the fallow ground

It was the word fallow.

And I searched my brain … fallow, that refers to a field that is unused, resting.

But, it didn’t end. Now it lingered in my mind, where it was tumbled and tossed, agitated. And each time it came to mind, my mind was agitated as well. Finally, after hearing it again just days ago, I knew what I needed to do … find a definition an explanation of the word.

fallow
plowed and harrowed but left unsown for a period in order to restore its fertility as part of a crop rotation or to avoid surplus production.

So the soil was plowed, all turned over. Then harrowed, chopping up the chunks of earth until it is smooth and ready for seed planting. Yet … it was left like that. Not to leave it empty, unnecessarily, but so that this soil could rest and be revived with the nutrients it needs when planting time comes.

(this is where the silent, knowing smile appeared across my face)

There have been fallow seasons in my life. Seasons that lasted far more than weeks or months. My fallow seasons, they lasted years. Years when I was turned and smooth … when I was ready for planting, but …

I was left.

I sat still.

Unused.

Empty.

With no purpose …

But, there was purpose in those fallow seasons. During those seemingly useless years, it was then that I was given opportunity to rest and be fed with what would be needed, when the time of seed-planting comes.

And it does come, maybe not the seeds you might expect, but God does not plow and harrow then leave his precious soil fallow forever …