It's
harvest time. For those who do not live in agrarian cultures-- you city dwellers, beach dwellers, busy students and office workers-- that means something. It really means something more than a nice Christian way of saying Halloween is here. Let me share a little of the epiphany I received about it in my robe and slippers yesterday.
You see in Denver in mid-October we often get our first snow. No matter how much I want to cling to summer or even fall, the white stuff comes and puts an exclamation point on the fact that the season has changed. My husband finished removing the shade fabric over our patio just as the flakes were starting to come down. You could feel the temperature drop with them. I was quickly reminded of the rest of the plants that I wanted to bring inside to keep from freezing. This has been a two week process and round one happened when I hauled in the geraniums and water plants when it turned cold. Now I had to decide what else I had room for. That was easy--
nothing! But I had been inspired to create at least 10 succulent and rock gardens after returning from CA in early September. I couldn't stand to think of them shivering covered in snow. After I made a place for them (sort of) near the window of the living room, I caught sight of my herbs and tomatoes and blooming chrysanthemums. What would a heavy blanket of wet snow do to them?
Not taking time to put on real shoes and a jacket, I went outside in my bedroom shoes and robe to gather blossoms, herbs, and (heavy) containers of succulents. They say "don't run with scissors", but I was moving pretty fast around the yard and back inside as my hands filled up. On my third trip I wised up and took along a plastic grocery bag to carry the cut branches filled with little green and red cherry tomatoes. Thoughts of
harvesting, reaping, abundance, and overflow became real to me in a new way. Even though my yard is small, there was more harvest than I could deal with.
Abundance; overflow. I was processing on several levels at once. This very physical, natural picture was underscoring the personal prophetic words I have been told and was pondering.
"The time is now for reaping, for harvest, for abundance, for overflow." I had heard it several times in the last months. Suddenly, as I felt my hands full and realized the results of the time and work and water and care I had given my garden, it came home to me.
When I get an epiphany, it causes me to ask more questions to try to understand more of what this picture and God are saying to me. It was so apparent I hadn't prepared for the harvest or that it was
now that it had to be dealt with. I was dashing around in the snow in my slippers and robe. I wished I had help to gather in all the herbs and move the pots. I wasn't going to be able to gather it all. There was a harvest happening even though I had been focusing on the leaves turning color and falling off the trees. There was a natural result of all those hours of tending the garden, even if my attention was now elsewhere.I felt overwhelmed with the abundance and the feeling that I was only gathering a portion.
All the garden imagery of growing seasons and harvest times, preparation and provision for management of the harvest, etc., with so many parallels to the spiritual realm, bring questions. What is our harvest? What does God have for us? Do we know what to expect? What are we actually expecting from Him? How can we prepare for reaping all the harvest, not just a small portion? What does He say about it?
Can you see parallels in your own life? Do you have other questions? I have more thoughts to share later. For now--a few photos.
