Tossing Old Dreams

Good morning sweet one!

What a blessed yesterday!  TWS's precious aunts came through the day before and we got to spend some wonderful time with family.  Since TWS and I both lost our mothers, I have been so longing for female family.  Having them here soothed a wound in my heart, and I am thankful for them.

They left after lunch, with many promises to return, and we came home and got to work.  We have been very behind on our planting, mostly due to weather.  We have a very ambitious schedule that involves the orchard, berry patches, an 80x40 personal garden, and the tomato farm.  I am so thankful for the potential bounty, and I welcome the hard work.  Precious daughter has taken to manual labor joyously, and is considering farming as a career.  To help ensure a "fall back plan", she would major in Ag and in organic chemistry.  Both of those compliment each other, and chemists can enter a greater number of jobs.

As we start this farming venture, I am finding a lot of personal scraps of dreams and "somedays" that I need to be rid of, like cleaning out the refrigerator of my heart from little bits of left overs that are too old to eat.  I used to have ambition and desires and formless, shapeless clouds of "what if" that had no solid basis but rather just floated in my soul from time to time.

I worry, from time to time as I try to sniff a dream that had been a major force in my youth, if I am throwing away something good that the Lord had for me.  "Perhaps I am to do this too," I wonder to myself, loathe to toss anything into the garbage forever.  "In the pantry of my spirit, I have this spice of experience, this flour of talent, that can of unused skill that I could add to this dream and make it something wonderful.".

I am not discontent here.  No.  It is not that I WANT to look for something more, it is that I do not want to ignore something the Lord has for me.  But I remember that if the Lord wants that dream or this ambition or the other idea to work, then He will make my path straight.  This farm, this path, however, is perfectly straight.  It is not a "what if" or "maybe" or the vestiges of a memory of a movie I saw that had tapped into my subconscious.  This is real life.  This is dirt under my nails and rest in my heart.  This is chasing geese from the pond, allowing herons to stay, and standing on the driveway eagerly waiting three wonderful aunts to come visit.  It is earthworms in my hand, indigo buntings at my windows, and the sound of my family's voices ringing like bells in my ears.  This is not a dream.  This is a glorious blessing-turned-real.

So I step out in the weakest of faith, because this is a strong blessing and I am afraid to lose it, and I name the farm, and I pinterest farm pictures, and I write about it.  An old dream of being a physician that cures disease gets thrown in the trash with vigor as I research how to cure the real disease that causes the leaves of one of my peach trees to curl with little rust holes in them.  Instead of leaving my family to pursue the ambition of curing someone, I am curing a fruit tree so that my family will have food.  That is more than a fair trade.

See, it is not that we will be happy or content when we get xyz.  If the Lord had allowed any other of my dreams to come to fruition, I would be sitting in that lab, or in that EOC, or in that testing facility, or in that bunker and be musing about a pastoral life, if perhaps I needed to go home and figure out how to work "farm" in with my day job.

No, the key is not waiting for life to change or to start, as I have done for way too long.  It is to know that this place, right now, where you are, is exactly where you are supposed to be.  There is good work and blessing for you there.  You will find joy and contentedness.  Give every dream up to the Lord and let Him pick the one that is best for you.  For me, after almost half a lifetime of excitement and threat and war and danger, He has placed me on a farm, around family, under tall skies and green fields.

This is my farm.  I am a farmer.  This is my life, the path He has chosen to place me on.  I will embrace this precious, perfect time with joy.  Amen :)