2005 Journal Entry 

30 year old me, writing in my journal. My kids were 4, 3 and 1! I also had a miscarriage that summer. I was exhausted and depressed but didn’t realize it.

This morning I asked God to speak to me as I went out to pick my green beans from our garden. As I was picking the plentiful harvest of green beans, I could tell too much time had elapsed since they were last picked. Friday to Thursday-that’s too long to go between pickings in the middle of prime bean season! The beans grow and grow and grow until you pick them, resulting in thick, rough, leathery beans with fat bean seeds inside. I don’t know about you, but I like tender young green beans. They are much more appealing.

As I was picking, I came across a few of the big fat leathery beans and began to get “green bean guilt”. I had a conversation with myself:

Motherly Me #1 “You really ought to pick your green beans.” 

Real Me #2 “Yeah, I know, but it’s the middle of July and it’s unbearably hot and humid. I’ll pick them tomorrow.”

Motherly Me #1 “You could get up early, say 5:00 or 6:00. It’s much cooler then.”

Real Me #2 “Yeah, I know.”

I tried to do that a few times, getting up early, before it’s too hot. Eventually, the green beans get the best of me and I am sick of picking green beans! And it doesn’t stop there! Once you finally pick them, you have to clean them, blanche them and freeze them, before they wither and become limp and lifeless in your refrigerator. 

So as I picked the beans, I threw the big fat ones out.

To me they are a symbol of failure. I didn’t get to them on time. The 1 and 2 foot tall weeds I wade through to get to the bean patch add to my defeat….ugh.

I guess I’m just a half-hearted gardener. In the springtime, I love to plant the seeds and watch them grow. I even hoe the weeds occasionally. But when the heat hits, I quickly wither in the garden.

“Lord, help me not to be half-hearted in the things that matter. Help me see things through, little by little. When the heat (trials) hit, help me keep plugging along, with my goal in mind, a bountiful harvest.”

“If you do not grow weary and lose heart.”  This phrase popped in my head. What is the first part of that verse?

Later on, I found 2 verses that had that phrase: “Consider him (Jesus) who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” Hebrews 12:3

Fix our eyes on Jesus.

“Let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest, if we do not grow weary and lose heart.” Galatians 6:9

All those many years ago, I declared myself a half hearted gardener. Today, I garden with all of my heart! Many things have changed, including the age of my kids!

Read my next post to find out more.