Destroying the Fields

We are in the process of preparing a small piece of dirt for our garden. It is by no means big enough to supply our food for a week let alone a year for the two of us. My husband cleared and tilled the plot with a tractor and left me the task of picking out the rocks. I've spent hours picking rocks and tossing them out of a small garden spot in order to till in steer manure and make the rows  prepared for the seeds. To keep the animals away from the vegetables, we stretched a fence around it and made a small gate. It was hard work and I couldn't imagine having to do it without the help of machinery.

While this process was taking place, I couldn't help but think how hard it would be to know that you wouldn't eat if the crops didn't produce and your future depended on saving enough seeds from one year to the next to replant. I thought about the process of breaking fallowed ground by hand and hoping the weather would bring success to the seeds. I thought about Old Testament famines so severe women ate their own children. When I ran across the story of Moab's rebellion and Israel's retaliation, I couldn't help feeling sad for the women and children in their towns but surprisingly, the thing that hit me hardest was the destruction of their fields. It was a horrible scene to me.

"They destroyed the towns, and each man threw a stone on every good field until it was covered. They stopped up all the springs and cut down every good tree..."

Free to Be a Kid

"And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men." ~Luke


I was reminded today how grateful I am for the things that God did not include in the Bible. As I watched a little boy gleefully tumble around and seriously hammer molding with his sister's magic wand as a tool; it got me thinking about Jesus' childhood. I'm grateful that his childhood could be free from centuries of scrutiny simply because God wanted it so. I shudder to think of the rules that religions would've gleaned from a description of the childhood of the son of man. His childhood was to be that of a normal human. His mother got to treasure those learning moments in her heart and his father must have had a touch of pride when the little boy picked up a hammer and imitated the man.

"And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him." ~Luke