What I do: Gardening

First: my mother is home! After 3 long weaks, she is back. Yeah, Tuesday was a lesson in patience from the start, between trying to help with a store remodel where the carpent people were late and so having to push back the time from 8 AM to 2 PM to 5 Pm and then having nothing to do to Mom getting stuck in customs and missing the flight that would have her home by 11 AM, having to wait another 12 hours or so at the air port and go through a terminal evacuation we still don't know the cause of and barely getting on the last flight out for the day.
Why all these reminders to be patient? Only, looking back, I don't think it's just that. There's also a little lesson about relying on God. Especially for me, who had this terrible habit of worrying obsessively. If something goes wrong, I panic. If it's suggested that something could go wrong, I'm willing to expect the worst. Granted, I have also learned to pray when I'd rather cry, but that mostly comes out as "Please, please, please!".
So Dad and I spent an hour at the airport waiting for Mom. I had planned to do some people watching, but there weren't really many people to watch, and only a couple were real characters. It was good anyway. After Mom finally arrived, we drove home in the rain with one windshield wiper going crazy and catching the working one and knocking it off its track or something. 'Twas an eventful day, I must say.
(On a side note, Mom brought back for me an awesome pair of royal blue-striped "Peru pants", which I am currently wearing and loving more than I anticipated. I am happy.)
The next thing on the crazy family calendar is another missions trip for Mom and Dad in less than two weeks, and then school starts. And it's my last year! (Yes, pretty much forever. No college for me!) I'm so not ready for school.
Anyway. I did have something non-recapping to do, so I'll get to that.

I like gardening. Call me crazy if you must, but it's true. I like watching things grow, especially when I planted them myself. I like marveling over how such beautiful things can come from such tiny seeds or simple bulbs. I'm not so much a fan of planting as I am of watching, which is why I prefer perennials over annuals. One-time planting, a little watering and pruning, and we're set!
Until this year, I'd never grown any form of food. I don't know what prompted us to decide to start this year. We didn't even get anything in the ground until June. (Hopefully next year we can start from seed like we wanted to but weren't able to because of our crazy summer schedules that begin in April.)
I must say that this year was a learning experience. Most of the vegetables in the garden are things I don't even eat (take our 20+ tomato plants for example). But I loved watching them grow from sprout to mature plant, watching them blossom and start to produce fruit, seeing squash and cucumber and watermelon vines spread out all over the place and sometimes use the tomato trelllises for support. I don't know what to do with the cauliflower, cabbage, and lettuce. I don't know if we'll even get anything from them. But that doesn't really bother me.
We've been getting cukes and squash pretty steadily now since the beginning of the month. I never have been fond of either, but I decided that I might as well learn to enjoy them because it's homegrown goodness right at my fingertips and I felt bad for wasting it. So I chop up a cucumber here or there and toss it in my salad. I'm still not fond of it.
I think the cooling weather has been getting to the garden, though. Most of the squash leaves are browning (if that's even a verb!) and I think we're seeing the last of the cucmbers. It makes me kind of sad.
I don't know where I originally planned to go with this. Maybe spouting off how good it's been for me because it makes me happy to start my day by going out among the plants and marveling over how they grow. Maybe I'll say how this whole experience has been training for me in a number of ways, but has also made me aware of how bad my memory is. I've turned on the sprinkler and gone off to do something for a few minutes, then got preoccupied, and the next thing I know I'm drowing the plants because I left the sprinkler on for too long.
Guess I don't really have a purpose behind this. It's just a new part of my life that I've enjoyed, so why not share? (Well, that and I needed to blog but didn't have much to say. Sorry if I'm boring you. It won't always be like this, I promise.) It's a pretty straightforward, easy summer project with tasty results. Hopefully next year I'll be more prepared for cucmber vines that need support and actually knowing when to harvest plants.
Yup. I've found another hobby. Well, we'll see how I feel about it next spring.

This Beautiful Life

Foreword:

This is not my first blog. I've been blogging since I was 12. (I think. I lost track. Maybe before that, maybe after, I don't know.)

It's pretty pathetic, but I have a bad habit of changing my blog. And I can't just change the title. No. Gotta change the whole thing.

Actually, this is the first blog I've had that's not utterly privatized. And I'm hoping I don't get the urge to change to a new one in a year or so.

For more information about this, check the "About this Blog" page.

I've had this song stuck in my head all year. Well, not the whole song; it's a song I've been piecing together for a long time. A line scribbled here in my sermon notes, another on a computer post-it note, a few in my story notebook. One time I sat down and collected all of the scribbles. There are actually a few songs there waiting to be written. I just can't make sense of most of them.

The one that's most often in my thoughts is about moments. I'm not sure how it started out. Maybe something a preacher said, maybe an idea that just came to me in the middle of one of my deep thinking sessions. Slowly, bit by bit, the words are falling into place. Usually in church. Something will be said that reminds me of this song and I'll write it down, wondering how it will fit.

The idea behind the song is personal. This past year, I've taken time to step back and evaluate my life. Looking back on my 17 years, I feel regret for the time I've wasted in useless, temporal things. My priorities have gradually gotten out of order.

This song has risen out of this struggle to make my life worth something. And not something great by man's measures; something great for God. It's not about living my life for Him. I've come to think of it as living every moment for Him.

(The song isn't finished yet. One day it will come together. One day the words will fall into place. When it's finally done, I'll share it here.)

I've developed a different perspective for looking at life. I'm starting to dig deeper. Rather than the whole picture, I'm looking at every thread. Now I think of the moments. Every moment is another opportunity to do something for God. Every second can be spent in so many ways. We forget about the seconds, the quiet hours, the single moments right in the midst of our crazy lives, and how each one can be a turning point. At each moment we have choices to make. How will we spend this precious life we've been given.

It sounds elementary, but think about this: this is the only life we have. This is it. No second chances. I know I tend to live in a fantasy world. My mind goes high above reality. This isn't a video game where you can pause, or restart, or get another life when you make a mistake. There will be opportunities that come along that you may only get once. We have to be right in the middle of reality, doing what we know is right, so we don't miss them.

This has been a growing year for me. Anyone who read my past blog knows one of the things at the forefront of my mind has been growing up. It's a strange notion, and a scary undertaking. I don't want to mess it up. I'm standing at a crossroads in my life, and the choices I make now are big ones. A hundred paths are laid out before me. I can't see where they will go. They are made up of millions of moments, countless opportunities and choices. How I spend those determines where I will go. How I spend my life is determined on how I live now. What I'm doing, where I'm at.... No matter how much I dream about where I want to go, what I want to do, I'm not going to just wake up one morning and find myself there. This isn't a fairytale. I have to choose wisely and do what's right in every moment if I want to get there. Otherwise I'll look back and not only wonder where my life has gone, but I'll see how all those threads wove together and I'll feel regret for how I wasted my time.

I want to look back and see a beautiful tapestry. Dark and light, color and shadow, pain and joy all weaving together, but strongly, because I was determined to live well in every moment. When I stand on the edge of eternity and look back at my life, I want to know, to see, that I didn't waste it. I want to deserve my "Well done". I want to be found faithful and true.

Sorry if this all seems like babbling. That's kind of how I blog. It's just my thoughts pouring out, my heart on the page for all to see in hopes that it rings true with somebody else. This blog is where I highlight some of those threads for others to share. It's a tangible record of my life, in all the ups and downs. It's a way for me to keep a clear perspective and appreciate this life I have been given. Sometimes I don't know what I want to say, so I have to write to sort out my thoughts. It's a confusing mess, but a beautiful one. Sometimes it might just be a story, or a song, or a moment I want to capture. It all blends together into my life. Every piece is a part of who I am and who I'm growing up to be. I step back and feel...breathless. Thank God for this beautiful life.