Slugs and snails...

The annual effort to grow our own veggies is looking rather grim. Although the lettuce and spinach have sprouted, those which I’ve transplanted into the soil have largely disappeared despite all my efforts to hold the monopods at bay. 

The ones waiting in the seed trays are waterlogged from the deluges of last week. I know that there is farming in my ancestry but it sure isn’t apparent.

Jesus told a parable about planting, but maybe it pertained more to an arid climate than to a Scottish one. He missed out the seed that fell on soil that swarmed with hungry snails and slugs. There, all were devoured except those surrounded by chemical slug killer. Then there was the seed which was carefully nurtured in seed trays, but the trays had no drainage and the seedlings became inundated and eventually root bound.

Make of that what you will! For myself, I see some people I know struggling to hang on despite the attacks of slimy predators, who are hungry for the tender leaves of growing faith. They need the protection of older Christians praying but proactively coming alongside and repelling the temptations, doubts, and insinuations which can eat away at faith until it is no longer there.

I see others whose faith keeps them firmly planted in a safe church setting. Good worship and teaching need to be shared, passed on, worked out within the community and world in which we live. Without regular ‘drainage’ we become complacent, fat and root-bound. We cease growing and eventually shrivel and die.

Monday morning is here. Time to be out there sharing God’s goodness with those who are hurting and fragile in faith, and those who are yet to meet Jesus.

Monday Morning

Monday morning. The start of a new working week. I’ve just heard of a new baby girl born into the wider family last night. The start of a new and precious life. Welcome to the world, Baby Mathieson!

Spring is the season of new life. We see it all around, in the lambs gambolling (not gambling!!) in the fields, in the budding on the apple trees and the flowering of the cherries. But new life isn’t restricted to springtime. We have babies incubating in precious mums we know, waiting for their moment of birth in late summer, autumn and winter. 

New spiritual life isn’t restricted to seasons either. My new life, being filled with the Holy Spirit and set on fire for God, did in fact occur just after Easter thirty-seven years ago, but my spirit had been incubating within the Father’s heart forever. 

God loved the world so much – not just a chosen few but the whole world, every individual – that he sent his most precious and only Son Jesus to bring them home to him. Home into the crucible of Love. Love that never gives up on anyone, no matter what’s going on in their lives right now. 

At the start of this new week I remember that and challenge myself not to write anyone off but to look deeper and prayerfully seek to draw out the gold in the lives of everyone I meet today, tomorrow, from now on.

Snow-soft thorns

I emerged from the back door in the dawning of the day to a winter’s hush as a curtain of large snowflakes dropped from the sky. Dusty was ecstatic, trotting off with purpose, her tail wagging joyfully. This is her kind of weather.

We slithered along the virgin snow, as yet unmarked by tires or footsteps, and turned down the lane. Bare-branched trees and thorny gorse bushes were blanketed with this soft covering and hung low to the ground. I particularly noticed the thorns, now so softly outlined against the brown trunks of other trees. 

I have to admit, my first reaction to this winter wonderland on a Monday morning when I had a hospital check up appointment, was not positive. I moaned inside as I thought of the tailbacks likely to slow progress to the big city. 

But how could I remain grumpy when Dusty frolicked like a puppy in the softly falling snow, every big flake unique? How could I keep grumbling when the thorns were now softened by this covering from above? When the harsh browns of winter were now draped in a fleecy white?

We don’t always get what we expect. Our well-planned days don’t always succeed. It took us one and a half hours to do a twenty minute journey. I had to abandon plans for a little shopping. 

But as I look out my window now and prepare to walk Dusty again, snowflakes drift down as if God were sifting icing sugar over the frozen earth of Scotland. He makes everything beautiful, if we only open our eyes and our hearts and put our petty plans in perspective. 

He can soften the thorns in our lives, if we only let him.

Thank you, Lord.

And now, into the winter wonderland.