October 12, 2017
Hello Dear Friends!
Do you enjoy the Autumn? I have always loved the chill in the air, the sun’s new position in the sky, it’s shimmering luminescent light, the earthy smell of dew soaked ground littered with falling leaves. The beauty of red and orange ornaments in the pomegranate and persimmon trees!
This week you will find both in your baskets. The per-simmons are not quite ripe. They may need a few days on your counter to become ripe enough to slice and eat. I enjoy eating these sliced horizontally for snack-ing. But they are great in chunks in a salad as well. Please let me know if you already have access to these fruits and I won’t include them in your basket. If you don’t want to go to the effort of eating your pomegran-ates, they are fun to place in a bowl for Autumn deco-rating.
Garden Reflection
Have you ever had a dream in your heart that doesn’t seem to grow? Perhaps you can relate to the psalmist who wrote, “We were like those who dream...Restore our captivity, O Lord...Those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting. He who goes to and fro weeping, carrying his bag of seed, shall indeed come again with a shout of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.” Psalm 126:1b,5-6
One of the things I love about the Bible is that the longer you read it, the more you see the ways that the Scripture interprets and illuminates itself with layer upon layer of history and literary devices.
One Bible commentator pointed out that this Psalm could very well have had the story of Joseph in mind as it begins with a dream and ends with sheaves. If you have studied the life of Joseph in the book of Genesis, you will remem-ber that he had a dream that involved sheaves. And yet many, many of his years were spent in captivity. He did a lot of sowing in tears and yet he experienced God’s faith-fulness that ended with incredible tears of joyful shouting.
Another layer of meaning comes with the captivity of God’s people in Egypt and again in Babylon. Still another layer of understanding comes from facing our own bond-age to sin and our flesh. What joy that Jesus came to give us the privilege of forgiveness of sin and being filled daily with His Spirit to overcome the flesh!
Most of us have unfulfilled dreams and desires and our hearts have become sad as we continue to sow, and wait, and pray. Our tears may well spiritually water the seeds we sow in prayer and we can count on our Lord to grow the seeds that will bring eternal harvest. Galatians 6:9 en-courages us with these words, “And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary.” As you eat your greens this week, perhaps these words and images will come to mind and serve as encour-agement that your weeping and sowing are not in vain!!
Emotional Wellness Fact
Research now has shown that crying actually LOWERS the stress chemical called Cortisol in your brain and that peo-ple who “hold back” their tears instead of “letting the tears flow” DO NOT get the benefit of stress relief. This is won-derful news for those of us who feel better when we cry! If you don’t, try “letting go” instead of “holding back” and see if you don’t experience some needed relief.
