Suffering is Fertilizer

This morning, we have strawberry pancakes for Saturday Morning Pancakes.  The neighbors come over, and the children pull back the netting to harvest the first crop. 

First Big Strawberry Harvest

We have too many. 

My husband flips pancakes with a neighbor's son, and soon, we have stacks upon stacks of strawberry-stuffed pancakes. 

Strawberry Pancake Stack

Everyone talks about this great harvest.

I offer up the secret:  you plant in compost.  

A few years back, we learned from our neighbors down the road how to compost.  We let organic material decay, and then it becomes fertilizer.  Our town lets you purchase a whole truckload of compost for next to nothing, but we also have our own composting bins outside the back door.  After a year, we have nutrient rich fertilizer from the waste of our lives:  eggshells, coffee grounds, paper, and yard trimmings, fruit and vegetable peels. 

All morning, I gaze at this bountiful harvest that comes about on the foundation of waste, decay, and brokenness.  Compost--that break down--provides exactly what the plants need.   I'm in awe of the whole process.

I think about my own fruitfulness as a wife, mother, and friend.  Isn't it true that any good thing God produces through my life needs fertilizer?  I'll never look at hardship, suffering, or my break-downs the same way again.  What I see as waste and decay just might be the fertilizer for next year's harvest. 

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Journal:  Has suffering been like fertilizer to me?