God speaks to me through my writing, and before i left He, gave me this cute little parable.
There is a story of an old man who sold all he had to buy just a single little seed. He planted that seed in a plot of land that was dry and desolate, a piece of land unwanted by anyone else. He planted that seed in the fall when every living thing closes up and shows signs of death. Every day he would walk a great distance to a stream to fill his tattered shoe up with water. He would take it back to the plot of land and carefully pour it over his seed but it was not enough. Again, he would repeat his journey to the stream, and again, and again, until the seed had just the right amount. The old man sustained ridicule from passers by who saw him talking tenderly to the seed as a father would talk to his child. They would throw rocks at him and mock him. They would ask him why he did what he did and he would reply with a simple smile. When winter came the man would lay close to his precious little seed and keep it warm, shielding it from the cold and frost. He kept it safe from all harm and storm, though it felt the strain and struggle the seed never knew the real danger that dwelled about the soil. When spring came the man who had watered the seed, cared for the seed, nurtured the seed, and loved the seed, spoke something new to the seed. He said, "Arise, beloved. Come forth!" the next day, a hardly visible little sprout timidly poked its head above the ground. Each day the man would say the same thing. "Arise, beloved. Come forth!" each new morning the sprout came a little more, eventually growing into a strong sturdy tree bearing much fruit and having abundant fragrant and lovely blossoms. A time came when the tree was too large when the tree was too large to be protected, but the old man had grown the tree to be strong. Storms came hard and often, but the tree withstood them standing when others fell. The old man continued his daily journey to bring water to the tree; he continued to talk to it, to love it, and to nurture it. People who had once mocked the old man now came to stand under the tree and eat of its fruit, they would always stay and talk to the old man and in time he had planted countless more seeds on the land that they owned each producing their own fragrant blossoms and fruit. This is my story. God has brought me through many seasons in my life, and this past year has been the last frost of the winter. Now is the time to poke my head above the ground and come into this dangerous and cruel world. Now is the time to glorify god with all that I am. now is the time to arise! and come forth!
It was a crazy thought that I was leaving the life I knew and loved to embark on what would probably be the second most influential time of my life. I didn’t quite know what lay ahead of me. I knew it was going to be difficult and it was going to be painful, but I knew the benefits of what I was going to do would echo in everything that I did from that point on. We drove 850 miles, 14 hours, and through rain, smoke and fire. We passed by all the burnt roads of Texas thus proving what a dry and weary land it truly is, yet God can still redeem. Towards the end of our trip it began to rain. That was the first bit of rain I had seen in a month. Needless to say, it made my heart smile, but God’s love didn’t stop being poured out. He didn’t just stop at granting me my rain I so desperately desired. What lay ahead of me was the most glorious sunset I have ever seen in my life. We had to pull over on the side of the road, because the beauty that God demonstrated to us through nature was so great I would hardly breathe, let alone continue driving into the sun. We were on a straight road that had just been paved and repainted. There were some wild flowers on the side of the road, along with come cattle in the field to the left. The sun was setting behind some small, yet still magnificent, mountains, as the rays radiantly shined through the clouds left from the rain. It was spectacular! I wonder is this going to be a picture of the next six months that lay ahead of me?
