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This time of year our yard is overrun with wildlife. Chubby squirrels play chase around the thick trunks of oaks. Blue jays scold from the branches above. A baby cardinal showed up on our doorstep, all fluff and no feathers, and peered into our kitchen as if he might like a snack from the refrigerator before hopping back to the woodpile.
We invite this unruly crowd with a feeder hanging from a tall slender pole filled with shiny black sunflower seeds. The other day I held a seed on the tip of my finger and studied it in the sunlight. The shape felt so familiar but I couldn’t quite place it. Then I read Psalm 126:5-6…
Those who plant in tears
will harvest with shouts of joy.
They weep as they go to plant their seed,
but they sing as they return with the harvest.
And I realized seeds are shaped remarkably like tears.
I thought then of how years ago I was given a packet of seeds at a local farm. I tucked them away in my purse with the best of intentions but I never released them. So I never saw any growth or fruit from them in my life. I wondered if the same might be true of my tears, the ones I so valiantly resist. Perhaps crying is actually a lot more like planting, like the farmer dropping the seeds into the earth.
Maybe I resist the letting go because I know what happens next. There will be dark and dirt. There will be ugliness before loveliness. There will be little control. There will be waiting and watching. There will be the vulnerability of hope.
But it takes all these things for the becoming to happen. For the tiny seed, the little tear–so fragile–to transform itself into something strong and wild and capable of pushing through to the surface, to do whatever it takes to find the light again. And there comes that day when this happens. I see it even now beneath the feeder: a few green strands lifted boldly to the sky. “We are here,” they say, “We have overcome.”
New life. Growth. Good things. Harvest with shouts of joy.
I’m facing some struggles in my life and this gives me comfort. Because I want to know that what I may cry about today could be what I rejoice over tomorrow. I want to know that there is a purpose in what I can’t see or understand yet. I want to anticipate the yellow sunflower on the table or the sweet apple on my lips.
Maybe you are feeling this way too. If so, let’s walk into the fields with each other and Jesus. Let’s take the seeds from the places we hide them and watch them fall. Let’s dare to believe that our tears are not really about an ending but instead, somehow, a beginning. And there is beauty coming.
XOXO
Holley
If you liked this post you’ll love this book: What Your Heart Needs for the Hard Days
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I’m having Coffee For Your Heart with my friend Holley Gerth
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