Category Archives: Parenting

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Lord Willing and the Creek Don’t Rise

I hear so much wisdom in the sayings of mountain people. “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise” expresses what we need to remember during these past 2 years of COVID, quarantine, and isolation.

I would imagine that each of us have had plans that didn’t work out the way we hoped during this time.

  • trips
  • birthday or anniversary celebrations
  • weddings
  • vacations

Our family has faced several of these situations – all the time realizing how very much we have to be thankful for. Most celebrations can be rescheduled, but those who have lost friends and loved ones face permanent loss, times that can only be redeemed in eternity.

I want to have the attitude expressed by my mountain neighbors – my plans should be based on the will of God while realizing there are circumstances beyond my control. If the road to your house crosses the creek and that creek rises, it is not safe to cross, so you stay home.

James 4:13-15 says this –

13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

Sounds a lot like “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise” doesn’t it?

Blue Heron in the Tuckasegee River at the Jackson County Greenway

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Weed or Flower?

“Nana, look! This is my favorite flower!”

Our granddaughter Rachel was helping me water our flowers near our front porch and wanted me to show me something quickly. I was so surprised by her choice of a favorite flower – a bloom that I consider a weed. More alarmingly, it was just at the point where all the seeds are ready to fly away.

… and make more weeds!

Rachel obviously did not share my dismay. She was thrilled that it was ready for her to blow on and that she could watch each tendril float gently away on the breeze.

How differently we saw and responded to the very same plant!

As I thought about this I became aware of how frequently this situation occurs in life. People are faced with a common situation but respond very differently. One person sees an obstacle as a challenge to overcome while another person sees the same obstacle as a barrier that prevents them from moving forward at all.

So many factors influence how we respond to various situations. It may be our personality, our past experiences, our mood at that moment. Any parent with more that one child experiences these variations in response on a daily basis! A family outing is planned and one child is excited while another complains “that’s dumb, do I have to go?”

It would be a dull world if everyone liked all the same things. There would be no variety, nothing unique or different. Just think for a minute if there was –

only one kind of flower

only one flavor of ice cream

only one style of music

only one style of clothes

only one form of worship

God in in his infinite, creative wisdom created each human being as unique, and that uniqueness is more than just a one-of-a-kind fingerprint. We are different from one another in body, mind, personality, and spirit.

Conflict often arises because we don’t value one another’s differences – we think others should think and act like we do because we think we know best or our way is best. Paul addresses this very issue in Romans 12:3-6a

3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. 4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.

Dandelions are not my favorite flower, but I can see why Rachel likes them. There is something delightful about those weedy seeds floating away when you blow on them …

May God give us grace to celebrate the vast variety of his creation.

In My Garden With God #

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It All Began in the Garden

8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. Genesis 2: 8-9, 15 ESV

So, it all began in a garden. God placed man there and gave him a job – “work it and keep it.” Now this is before the fall, before sin entered the garden. I think it is of utmost significance that God placed his highest form of creation – human beings – in a garden and also gave them work – a purpose.

Purpose – such a powerful word. A definition of purpose is “the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.” Having a purpose gives meaning to our existence. God created us with this need for a purpose – and he had work for humans to do right from the beginning.

I realize not everyone gets the fulfillment I get from working in my garden. It renews and feeds my soul in so many ways. But I do know that a part of our being as humans is restored and renewed when we are outside in nature. An English professor, Dr. Mae Claxton, told me recently about some of her university students engaging in a service project that involved working in the Community Garden. She mentioned that some were not too excited about gardening, but afterwards expressed surprise with how “relaxing” and “renewing” it had been for them to get in the dirt and weed. They made a connection with nature working in the garden that they hadn’t made before.

Could it just be that the experience of tending a garden takes us back to that plan God had for us in the beginning?

Maybe, but regardless, I sense that I am tending God’s creation when I weed, trim, mulch and water. Each plant that grows and blooms is the fruit of that labor. It also brings joy to share flowers and plants with others. The variety of color, texture, form, shape, and smell blesses me. How wonderful that our Father, Creator of the Universe, gave us work that results in such beauty. My husband, Phil, could write about vegetable gardening in much the same way with the end result of food that tastes delicious. That food nourishes our physical bodies and allows us to share with others.

It all began in a garden and the blessing of communing with God continues in gardens all over the earth.