Acorns

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

That is what is sounds like outside my house this fall. The acorns are truly raining down out of our oak trees.

The other day I saw a huge flock of black birds land in our biggest oak tree out front. They did a group snatch and grab. At first I was confused and then realized they were taking acorns. Within seconds they all flew away again. I was like, "No come back, please take all you want."

I have been pondering these acorns for weeks now. We are in a drought. In the same year we have the least water we have the most acorns. Hmm.

Yesterday while blowing off the front walk of leaves and acorns, a new insight about these prolific little buggers dropped into my head. When we are stressed and depleted there is this massive seed production going on in our lives. I stopped what I was doing and stood in awe of this thought.

You see, part of what I do is walk alongside people in the some of the hardest days they face on earth. Or, I walk with them while they sort out the meaning of the hardest days they have known on earth. That is a challenging call at times. I need all the help God will give me to keep allowing myself to be in those places with people. We all need to see purpose in the hard and painful days.

This is a beautiful visual of why we patiently endure hard days and our questions around past hard days. Those dry and difficult seasons in our lives produce seeds. All kinds of different seeds. When the season is over we have a rich storage bin of seeds. We have gobs and gobs of seeds. The dryer the season the larger the seed production.

In surprising ways and with people we never knew we'd meet we receive the invitation from God to plant those seeds... to give them away... to offer life to another person. God waters it, feeds it and causes it to grow. And, we have the privilege of seeing purpose and life come out of our past pain.

This is another challenging invitation to trust God. God knows exactly what seeds He is developing. He knows where and with whom He wants to spread them later. If we trust that He is working for His glory and our good and for the good of others then we will more patiently endure. If we do not we will be controlled by our fears. We will be prone to despair. We will wander until we do trust. Or, we will determine to ignore God and go about rescuing ourselves.

This morning before writing this post, I came across this poem:

Be still, my soul! The Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief and pain;
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul! Thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Poem by Katharina von Sclegal

Dear Lord,

Thank you. This visual of piles and piles of acorn seeds is very helpful to me. To know and believe you have good purposes in all seasons is hopeful to me. For my friends who are hurting and enduring a dry and hard season please show them how to rest in you... to trust in you... to believe in you.

For my friends who are not in that season right now but have bags of seeds to spread around. Guide them to people and places to spread those seeds. May they follow with a listening and responsive heart to the needs of others. May You get all the credit for any life realized in the process.

May we all know how to worship you regardless of what season we find ourselves in.

Amen