Enjoying Some Fruit

I think we all plant seeds only to water, weed, prune, fertilize and hope to harvest good fruit. If not in the soil of the earth in the soil of our children's hearts, perhaps in both.

There are seasons in a parenting that you feel like all you do is fertilize and weed, you wonder if you if all this work will bring a good harvest. When growing plants your results are fairly quick, but when it comes to parenting it may be years, perhaps a generation before you'll see fruit, if any.

Now that our children are maturing we are beginning to enjoy some fruit. Our life is FAR from perfect, and not all of our children are bearing good fruit right now and with that comes GREAT heartache. It is easy to get caught up in the disappointments and struggles of life and feel sorry for yourself, at least for me it is.

Yesterday God poured out on me the overwhelming revelation that I am very blessed... unfortunately, I need to be reminded of that once in a while.

It was a rainy day, Emma was busy working on her lessons in the kitchen;
she is so self motivated now, it hasn't always been this way...

Olivia was hard at work documenting all her herb studies into an e-book; it was quiet in the house. I actually had time to read. :o)

It hasn't always been this way. Our home use to be a place with lots of dirty hands and loud voices, and I use to have to PUSH the school work to get it done. Of course the more people in the house the complicated things are. To be honest I miss those days. I long for our house to be busy with children again, but that is God's choosing. Instead of being discontent I am learning to enjoy the fruit of THIS season and being attentive to other ways to sow seeds.

After the school lessons were done Olivia wanted to head up to the Quilter's cottage and work on a quilt, I had one too, so off we went. We were the only ones there, and all three of us were busy working on our projects. It was a very pleasant day. Check out Olivia's quilt HERE!
You can see my current project HERE!

When we got home Olivia cooked supper, now there is some fruit worth enjoying, all those years of letting her experiment in the kitchen, and fussing on her to CLEAN IT UP is now paying off!!! :o)

Jeff and I had some quiet time alone while Emma cleaned the kitchen. OH MY!!! I walked into the kitchen to see it SPOTLESS. She stood there with a dirty apron on, looking at the kitchen and she said. "I love my life!" LOL!!!!! I was so incredibly blessed that she found satisfaction and joy in cleaning the kitchen! No, it is not always this way, and those that know Emma know she is the outdoors-y type, but she is also maturing into quite a homemaker and I am thankful! I hope she and Olivia will continue to embrace femininity and homemaking. They and their families will enjoy this fruit also!

So today, no matter which season you are in, try to find the good fruit in it, enjoy it. And for those of you that are enduring a hard season and suffering heartache, remember to trust in the Lord and this too shall pass! Continue to sow, water, fertilize and weed, for God has promised to bring a harvest to those of us that faint not!"