SUSTAINED THROUGH THE HARVEST

Summer peaches ripen and trees heavy laden with harvest beg for relief, someone to come and lift the weight of the fruit from branches bent. My soul bends now at the weight of this new season; it is at once fruitfulness and emptiness. Trees clap their hands and empty their wares. I, too, am invited to give praise and release the weight of all the years behind me. 

 I do give thanks and bear witness that the work of our hands has not been our own, that God has blessed the work of our hands. And yet, I long to interfere with His vineyard, His plantings. In my secret soul would like to keep planting, replant or perhaps even transplant all those olive shoots into my own soil.

Seems silly to think that a prophet who wrote thousands of years ago speaks of my life, but the words ring so true I think God might be smiling as I read:

"Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west...Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth." Isaiah 43:5, 6

We will gather soon on the west coast to celebrate lives and a marriage, fruitfulness and the faithfulness of God. The ground keeps shifting underneath me, yet there is One who lifts the weight of this fruitfulness from me. He sustains me and then, stoops down to carry me! 

"Even to your old age and grey hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you." Isaiah 46:4

Medicine from Sacred Writings:

"Let present things be the ground, the ground of your trust in Me."

John Chrysostom 

Fourth Century