Carrot Tops

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Margaret

My son Hans and his Katy are energetic gardeners. Wanting to teach Nicholas, Evelyn and Thomas the principles of sowing and reaping, they devoted part of their pretty yard to growing vegetables and berries. This week we’ve all benefited from Katy’s delicious cooking, enjoying leeks, onions, strawberries, currants, and other foods from the yard.

Then today Katy planned to harvest the first of an abundant carrot crop, their green tops standing tall and lush. With trowel at-the-ready, she showed the children the plump, orange carrot tops peeking out of the black soil. But when she pulled out the first few, we got a terrible surprise. Each one was nearly as wide as it was long, some virtually spheres, and most were split down the middle with grey gunk in the cracks.

And then we saw the reason: SLUGS.

Thousands of them had been banqueting on Nyman carrots for weeks. As we sliced into the carrot-crevices, slimy blobs wriggled and writhed, objecting to being disturbed. Many of the carrots included hollows in which hundreds of eggs had been laid. The word “gross” wasn’t disgusting enough.

Katy ran for the gardening book while Hans made the decision to uproot all 7 rows of healthy-looking carrot plants. As he dug and tugged, he tossed the uprooted carrots into two piles: contaminated and partially-contaminated.

The children carefully carried the partially-contaminated to a table, where I used a sharp knife to trim away whatever “clean” bits could be used. Then they rubbed off the soil and plopped them into a tub of clean water to go to the kitchen.

What could have been a bountiful carrot crop turned out to be a big bust for a family who had weeded, watered, and anticipated a harvest from April through August. But God saved the day with a spiritual lesson.

As Hans pulled out one foul carrot after another, lamenting the loss, he suddenly said, “This is probably a parallel to what our ‘righteous’ works look like to God. At the end of days, as the Lord combs through our good deeds, he’ll be tossing them into two piles: ‘Contaminated and partially-contaminated.’ Not one will be flawlessly righteous.”

We can easily fool ourselves into thinking our good deeds are boosting our credit with him. But as learned theologians remind us, we’re all sinners, and we’ll always be sinners, to the very end. It’s healthy to remind ourselves of that so we won’t be tempted to classify our behavior as “pretty good.”

The happy truth is we’re saved by God’s grace through faith in him, not by anything we do to earn it. (Ephesians 2:8-9) As Bishop Ryle says, even in our best works, there’s something to be pardoned.

Tonight we ate the carrot pieces shaved from contaminated carrots, but Katy’s plans for carrot soup, carrot cake, carrot bread, and other goodies preserved in her freezer will not materialize.

But in 2013, WATCH OUT slugs!

“We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags,” (…or contaminated carrots). (Isaiah 64:6)

Label it love.

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Margaret

Most women love to be romanced, and most men are completely confused about what that looks like. One reason for the disconnect is that romantic behavior usually doesn’t mean much to a man. He thinks it’s silly, even stupid. (Of course, a wise man doesn’t mention that.)

I well remember the time I concocted an elaborate plan to gift Nate with a romantic evening. I arranged for our then-three children to sleep at their cousins’ house overnight and worked hard cleaning, cooking, and filling the house with flowers, candles, and music.

I bought new bed sheets and sprinkled them with spices. (That idea came from the Bible.) Nate reacted positively and thanked me profusely, but his responses probably would have been just as enthusiastic without all the romantic touches.

Male-female relationships have been a challenge since Eden. When Adam and Eve were booted out after tasting the forbidden fruit, no doubt Adam blamed Eve for taking the bait, and Eve blamed Adam for not stopping her. Couples have been squabbling ever since.

In the beginning, Eden’s Garden was a perfect place, and its citizens were sinless. We’re not sure if that lasted 10 eons, 10 years, or 10 minutes, but originally the first couple lived in perfect harmony. What fun that must have been, to enjoy marriage without a single difference of opinion. Each received from the other exactly what he/she needed, and the battle of the sexes didn’t exist.

God hadn’t yet needed to define agape (undeserved) love, since both Eve and Adam deserved the perfect love they received from each other. These days, however, undeserved love is rarely given, and the love we do give has labels: sacrificial love, brotherly love, enduring love, childlike love, patient love, sexual love, romantic love.

And selfish love.

All of us have occasionally loved selfishly, which simply means that on the other side of it, there was something in it for us. In a way, that’s what my gift to Nate was. Since he’d never arranged an elaborate romantic evening like that for me, I put something together based on my own desires and labeled it a gift for him.

Someday, though, when we’re all living in a New Eden, labeled love will be obsolete. Each of us will know how to love like Adam and Eve did (before that fateful bite of fruit), loving perfectly and without limits. We won’t even have to work at it.

Meanwhile, we do have to work at it and should be intentional about loving each other. Even then, probably the best we can do is label-love. One thing we can rejoice about now, though, is that God’s love for us is an Eden-kind of love already, since it’s absolutely perfect in every way. After all…

“God is love.” (1 John 4:8)

Cyber-words

Posted on August 23, 2012 by Margaret

A few years ago, if you’d have asked me what cyber-friendship was, I couldn’t have answered. Now I not only have an answer, I have lots of cyber-friends. All kinds of readers from every corner of the globe have allowed me to become electronically acquainted with them, and I’ve kept a cyber-file of their stories.

Since my book was published [Hope for an Aching Heart, at left], many people have detailed specific help they’ve received from its pages, and the email quoted below is an example that was deeply moving to me.

Bev writes:

I purchased your book from DHP [Discovery House Publishers] recently, in hopes that it would help me get through the crisis I am experiencing in my life right now.

My husband of 37 years left me without warning, to be with another woman. To say I was devastated would be putting it mildly. I thought my life was over. I thought we would spend the rest of our lives together, but it was not to be. I am having an extremely hard time dealing with this. I saw your book in a leaflet from RBC. Knowing that I am going through most of the same feelings, emotions and challenges that a widow would, I thought maybe this book could be of some help. It’s been amazing!

Ninety-five percent of the book pertains to what I am going through. I just substitute ‘single woman’ for ‘widow’ and ‘marriage breakdown’ for ‘husband’s death.’ I am finding great comfort and help from this book. The prayers at the end of each chapter are wonderful and very pertinent.

Perhaps you could mention it in a blog or elsewhere on your site, that it might be a helpful book also for women who are going through a marriage breakdown and divorce, especially if it’s been a sudden event for them.

God bless you!

Sincerely,
Bev

I’m thankful for Bev’s openness and her willingness to share her heartbreaking story (used with her permission), and I want to encourage anyone enduring marriage struggles to take her advice. The reason she’s found hope is that my book is laced with pieces of God’s book, life-changing truth that can supernaturally jump off the page and into our lives, no matter what the situation. His book is “living and powerful.”

What does that mean?

Hebrews 4 tells us the words of Scripture “discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” That isn’t just so it can judge us. It’s also for the purpose of determining what our hearts need so it can help us. Bev found that even though the book was aimed at widows, God met her in her non-widow circumstance because his Word actively discerned her need and then blanketed it with encouragement and love.