In My Garden

In front of my porch lies a little flower bed. There is a climbing rose known as Seven Sisters in the center. Every summer it covers itself with blood-red blooms and I never seem to have enough opportunities to enjoy its beauty. The Seven Sisters bush was already in place when we moved in; beside it, we added 3 more bushes known as Knock Out roses in varying shades of pink. Yes, I have a thing for roses. 

(image by thephotohiker.com)

Every year, as soon as the air becomes warm, I notice a creeping vine come up in different spots. If I don't catch it in time, it can and will completely surround my roses, choking their growth and blocking the sunlight from their limbs.

 

This happened recently when I left town for several days. When I returned, the vine was everywhere, weaving itself in and around the roses, up the railing and wrapping over the decorative stones surrounding the bed. There were stalks a foot tall of another breed of weed (dandelions maybe? But surely not that tall...?) in one end, and the vine was even wrapping itself around them, weed entwined with weed. I started ripping it out piece by piece, catching a thorn in my bare palms from time to time. I kept at it, though, until I could finally see the mulch again.

 

While I was tugging and digging and cursing Adam and Eve (you know you've done it too!), I felt a soft touch, followed by that soft voice. You know, this is exactly what I do, too... No, I have to be honest. That wasn't really what I was thinking about at all.

 

You see, our lives are like a garden full of unique and beautiful flowers. He wants to walk through the garden every day, admiring the beauty of the life we are living. From time to time, vines of bitterness, bigotry, hatred, quick temper, impatience, sarcasm, etc. begin to sprout up here and there among the blooms. He notices these weeds and points them out, but being the gentleman that He is, He allows us to pull them out when we are ready. Sometimes the vines become too entangled and prevent His light from reaching us so the growth in our relationship with Him becomes hindered. It might take a while, but eventually the vines will overcome the garden and will kill us spiritually, if not physically as well. Thankfully, He is the Master Gardener and, if we allow Him, He will come into our garden and begin to pull the vines away from the flowers. He'll clear away all the noticeable evidence of the weed. But you see, if that's all we allow Him to do, the vine will inevitably come back.

 

The only reason I have to keep pulling away pieces of vine to protect my roses is because I haven't located the root. Somewhere in the soil, perhaps under my porch where I can't access it, is a root that keeps the vine coming back, no matter how much I rip away at it. Unless I remove that root, I'll be pulling vines until the day I die. The Gardener knows this, too, and wants to prevent the vines from returning so we can grow and flourish and be a beautiful display of how He can transform imperfection into impeccable. But we have to allow Him access to the root. We have to allow Him to dig deep enough to remove the cause of the __________ (<-- insert the name of your vine here). Yes, it's uncomfortable and yes, it might hurt, but it's worth it to have that beauty in the end.

 

Don't know if you have any vines? There may be one unnoticeable vine entangled with another, you won't know until you hit your knees and repent for allowing it to take root, then ask God to remove it and show you others and how to prevent them from taking root again. Ask Him to reveal scripture to read relating to your situation; write them on Post-Its and stick them everywhere- the bathroom mirror, cereal cabinet, refrigerator door, your steering wheel. Set reminders on your phone to go off periodically throughout the day. If you close this blog remembering nothing, remember that all is in vain without daily maintenance with the Gardener.

 

I hope this speaks to your heart.

 

Cassie

Why I Gave Up the Farm

To continue the focus of "responsibility", I'd like to share a personal story about one aspect of being responsible that I definitely struggle with- setting priorities and keeping them.

As a stay-at-home mom, my job description mentioned cooking, cleaning, and making sure the kids didn't kill themselves or each other. Sounds easy enough, right? I ran into a serious problem, though. Okay, so that's a little dramatic... My problem wasn't the problem; my problem was me.

You see, I had a family farm. It was beautiful. The picket fence was painted white in stereotypical fashion, with the expected 2-story farmhouse and acres of surrounding farm land. I had pigs, chickens, cows, goats and even a couple llamas. I was an expert, producing award-winning crops and baked goods for the county fair. My neighbors were friendly and helpful, and I reciprocated their generosity at every opportunity. We had ourselves a 1950's Mayberry right in the 21st century. I loved it.

My success at the farm even granted opportunities to travel and help others farms. I assisted in establishing successful farming, as well as fishing, locations in Hawaii and Japan, restored a lighthouse in New England, and even farmed Her Majesty's countryside of England. I've gone down un-dah, mate (Australia), and I have an invitation to the Mediterranean Riviera. You'll never believe this, but I've even been to the North Pole and Atlantis.

And this is where you know my tall tale has to end. Joke's over.

I'm talking about FarmVille. I can't (and don't want to) tell you how many hours I wasted on that game. It's geared to hook you into coming back for more. Your crops ripen at varying times, some 4 hours while others grow at 12 or even 24 hours, and you achieve more crops, animals, and even other farm locations by mastering levels. You can't master levels without performing tasks on your farm.

I set timers on my phone to tell me when to harvest my crops, and I even planted certain crops based on when I would be available to come back and harvest them. I was one of the first to download the app when it was published in the app store. It was an addiction. And what's sad is that my addiction was mild. Check out these pictures of others' farms. I shudder to think of the hours spent strategically placing hay bales into portraits of The Joker, someone's wedding photo and even the Mona Lisa. *sigh*

Meanwhile, the laundry piled up, the sink was full of dirty dishes and I just "didn't have time" to do it all. My farm, on the other hand, was spotless, the animals well-fed, and never did a crop go to ruin. There was a serious problem in my priorities.

The basis of this blog is about being a virtuous woman and finding what being a virtuous woman means in the 21st century. If we look at the verses about her, we see that she is up before dawn, stays busy spinning wool that eventually makes the clothing for her household and also to sell, buying land and planting vineyards, tending to the needy and, after all that, she stays up late at night to do more. She tends to real fields while I'm busy pretending in a game. Shame on me.

I came to this realization quite a while ago during one of my evening glasses of whine (spelling intentional). "God, I just don't know what to do. There just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day and I'm so tired of the disorganization. What should I do, God? What am I doing wrong?". When the answer didn't come immediately, I picked up my phone and opened the game app. "That." What? "How much time do you spend on that game? Don't play for 3 days and see what happens." 

I'm sure you know what happened. My husband came home from work on the first day and asked who had come over to help me because there was so much done. After 3 days, I was so pleased with the progress I had made and the peace I felt that I realized I didn't even miss it.

Fast forward to nearly a year later. I felt the Lord nudging me about writing this blog post, but I ignored it. Through the course of events in our life, I had found a new game, Village Life, and was falling into the same rut. How can you be preaching responsibility on your blog but not taking care of the responsibilities in your own life? The guilt sunk in deep.

If you are disciplined enough to set a limit on your game time and still accomplish your every day responsibilities, more power to you honey! I know I can't. I get sucked in and "5 minutes later" it's really been 45 minutes. Don't let a "5 minute" stress reliever take precedent over the priorities. Keep all things in moderation, and see if you can't put that 5 minutes to a better use. Maybe that stress reliever is really just a way to procrastinate? Think about it... And speaking of 5 minutes, listen to this song. It's one of my favorite reminders, and I hope it makes you think, too.

Until next time...
Cassie

The Label in my Window

There's a label in the back window of my car. It looks like this:

That label, seemingly, serves one purpose: to tell anyone that sees my car that I am licensed to sell Thirty-One merchandise. (Ad break: Now that it's posted on the World-Wide Web, feel free to like my Thirty-One facebook page and don't forget to like the Purple Threads facebook page, as well, so you can keep up with all things Virtuous Woman! Now back to our regular programming...) ;-)

It wasn't until I sat on the trunk of my car after dark and applied that label with the edge of my debit card by the light of the garage that I realized it also serves another purpose: accountability.

If I'm driving 80 MPH on the freeway, zipping in and out of traffic like a NASCAR driver, or honking at someone and yelling about their driving, is that a good representation for my business? If someone notices that label and walks up to my car to write down my number or web address and they notice the cereal my daughter dumped out a week ago and random junk thrown all over that I haven't had time haven't bothered to clean up (which is exactly the way my car looks right now, so obviously it's eating at my conscience), is that a good representation of my own personal organization and, therefore, ability to help you organize yourself with the products I'm trying to sell?

"Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."

~ 1 Corinthians 10:31

While my car should be acceptable for advertising my personal business, every aspect of my life should be acceptable for advertising a far more important business- my Father's business. I am, in theory, to be a walking billboard for the love of Jesus and the Holy Spirit that dwells within me, but is that what is actually being displayed? Jesus was patient, kind, understanding, but he was also firm, tactful, and precise. He loved the sinners, and His choice of friends proves it. Tax collectors, prostitutes, fisherman, the woman at the well... Yet how many times do we see picket signs instead of Bible studies? How many times have we stuck up our nose when we should have held out our hand?

What's the label in your window? Does it impact the way you live your life?