Peace Out

work on the garden began the other day.  currently though it in no way resembles a garden.  currently it's an over grown bed of rose bushes.  it is however equipped with sprinklers and full sun, and, since roses aren't my thing, a garden it shall be.



i'm not sure that this picture does my war torn hands justice for how bad it truly was and how sharp rose thorns truly are.



the look on my face says, "i'm determined!" or rather... "i'm cold." or at the very least... "what have i gotten myself into?"  armed with jon's coat, a shovel and my new gardening boots (practically stolen from REI's big sale) i began an hour and a half of intense weeding otherwise known as shoveling.





well that was yesterday, and this is today.  today it's snowing and jack's home from school.  after a particularly bad altercation with one another that involved loud arguing, toy breaking and ear piercing cries, momma determined that a more involved explanation of the verse "peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness." james 3:18 was in order.

do you know what it means to sow?
yeah, like you take thread...
no. sow a garden. it means to plant.
oh. what?

right.  let's explain it further.  now it just so happened that i had all of my gardening supplies purchased and sitting around.



we pulled out the green houses and seeds and the black-thumb-proof instructions and set to work sowing seeds of vegetables all the while discussing sowing seeds of peace.



did they fight over who got which seeds during our discussion on peace?  yes they did.  are those bookshelves new in the background?  yes they are.  the house changes a lot.  it's too much too keep up with on the blog ;)



the peat pods start off hard.  you can't plant a darn thing in them.  nothing would grow in this kind of soil.  now isn't that convenient? because you see our hearts are hard like this when they're full of sin.  they're hardened towards God, and they won't receive the good He desires for us.  they also won't produce anything good apart from Him.



but God knows that.  so he softens them.   when we poured the warm water on the peat pods, they softened instantly and got all big and puffy. pretty cool on all accounts and quite convenient for my illustration. 



the next step was to pull open the netting and fluff the peat in order to ready them to receive the seeds.



doesn't the Master Gardener do this for our hearts as well?  He softens hard hearts.  He works the soil.  He readies us to receive.  how gracious God is to work on our behalf and for our good.



but this all takes time.  and work.  and waiting.

My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, 

more than watchmen wait for the morning. Psalm 130:6

that's a good verse.

the seeds God sows in us are the fruit of the spirit

love
joy
peace
patience
kindness
goodness
faithfulness
gentleness
self control

the seed we were specifically talking about sowing was peace.

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you,

live at peace with everyone.

Romans 12:18

and the harvest will be righteousness as the verse in james tells us.  but you see peace is a fruit of the spirit.  we can only give it out as it's given to us, and it's given by way of the holy spirit.  we need God to help us live at peace and be peacemakers.  we just won't be apart from Him.

our seeds are all nestled in their green house.  the green house the boys are currently in is called brotherhood (or team brothers as they're called around these parts). being peacemakers is not in their nature (or mine for that matter).  God has given it to them (and jon and i) as a means of sharpening.  oh let me not miss the opportunity!

this is the first blog of hopefully a weekly blog on how to use word pictures and illustrations to help your kids understand scripture.  i've wanted to do this for a long time now so consider this #1.  there, i've written it.  now i'm committed. ultimately my hope is to keep myself accountable to be doing this for my own kids, and if someone else benefits along the way...sweet! take it or leave it, but they should be easy to do in the future.  if you wanted to talk to your own kids about hard and soft soil and sowing, but aren't looking to plant a whole garden, consider using beans to tell the story.  or just read the blog post with them.  now that the boys have experienced sowing seeds, i'm hoping they will be better able to understand how they can sow peace when we say the verse in the future.  like, probably this afternoon...