{my graphics are free goodies for you}
I sit on the back porch rocking in a chair and staring at the trees. It’s hard for me to be here in this place of stillness. My to-do list tugs at my mind, beckons me back inside, but I pull my knees closer to my chest and stay.
I watch birds find dinner at the feeder. A baby squirrel balances tentatively on a limb. The laughter of children drifts over the fence. The trees whisper “shhh, shhh” with their branches. And it seems they are speaking to the stream of thoughts running endlessly through my mind.
I think of the first Psalm where a person who walks closely with God is described as being “like a tree planted by the rivers of water…that brings forth fruit in its season.”
Fruit in its season.
That phrase feels awkward to me. It’s not instant or immediate. It implies waiting and patience. It doesn’t fit in our fast-paced, get-it-done, make-every-second count world. But as I stare at the trees I’m reminded of how we’re created to live. We need silence and stillness because it’s in those moments that growth happens.
Fruit in its season.
I think of the blueberries now ready just down the road. I wait all year for those berries. And they taste so much sweeter because of the wait. God isn’t in a hurry. He never runs out of time because He has eternity. So do we. And God doesn’t need me to make five, fifteen, or forty more bushels. The expectations I place on myself are more mine than His.
As Ann Voskamp says, “Haste makes waste. The hurry makes us hurt.”
I seem to hear another whisper as I sit on the porch. This time it comes not from the branches of the trees but from within my heart. The One Who Loves Me whispers “Shhh, shhh.” It sounds like an invitation that could heal my soul. And this time I listen, embracing the new stillness in and around me.
There will be time for fruit tomorrow, or the next day…whenever the season is right.
I hope you have a restful weekend, friend.
XOXO
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