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? 

We Could Hardly Wait for This!

We could hardly wait.

No, it wasn't anything electronic, expensive, or fashionable.  It wasn't anything involving travel, tickets, or long lines for amusements.

It was a single red strawberry (our first one) in the strawberry patch.

First Ripe Strawberry

The squeals of laughter!  The bare feet running across the morning grass!  Living with flair has taught me that the whole family can take great delight in the profoundly simple.  This strawberry represents nearly two years of waiting.  Last year, we couldn't let the plant produce in order to let the roots go deep.  Then, with the help of compost and netting to keep the birds and chipmunks away, we observed those green strawberries growing.

Every single morning we went out to check on the patch.

My youngest daughter just said, "This is the most awesomest day!  I can't believe I picked a strawberry!"

It was delicious.  All of us had a bite in the kitchen.

Living with flair means simple, patient, ordinary living.  You don't need any other life. 

And today especially, I'm so thankful for the men and women who fought and died to make these ordinary days possible. 

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Journal:  Tell us all something about your ordinary life.  What beautiful thing happens in your ordinary day?

The Thing You're Neglecting Might Be the Thing You Need

First Green Strawberry

Today I zoom in on the first little strawberry in the patch.  I take a moment to focus.  The background blurs, and all of a sudden, I see what I have never observed in my whole life:  the white fuzzy covering on a new strawberry's stem. 

Have you noticed it before?  Not me!  It's because I value (and pay attention to) final products that I can consume;  the juicy bright red of a strawberry far outshines the immature and stunted green bud.

Not anymore.
 
That's what living with flair feels like.  It's a mindset and a focus to notice that one stunning thing (that you haven't paid attention to before) that ushers in beauty, wonder, and mystery. It's often not the obvious final product that gives the most delight.  It's the not-yet and the neglected.  It's the unripe and the green. 

Look there, and you'll find flair. 

This white fuzzy stem declares something today. A tiny, beautiful thing is happening here.  Not glamorous or stage-worthy.  Not marketable or consumable.

But beautiful. 


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Journal:  What neglected thing has the most wonder and beauty for us today? 

Small Town, Big World (in Pictures)

I live in a town where you can take pictures of things like newborn foals.  Skipped Emotion had her little one almost a week late, and here she is just 4 days old.  Today, both horses were released to the meadow.

I live in a town where you can take your little girls strawberry picking (just down the road) from a local fruit farm.  We picked 9 pounds and ate maybe 2 pounds along the way.  The owners don't care; we go to church together, and they told me they care more about us coming back year after year than whether we eat strawberries. 

I live in a little town where you run around huge trees in the twilight.   But lest you worry about the scope of what my children do in this little town, I offer this:

Yesterday I went to the elementary school assembly.  Children reported, not so much on local news, but on international concerns.  They celebrated how much money they'd all raised for oil spill clean up efforts.  They recalled their collective attempts to sell "Hearts for Haiti" and donate money for hurricane victims.  And then, as a group, they sang their anthem for the year:  "We Are the World" (complete with the modern version's rap sequence--thank you 5th graders!)

They sang so loud the walls seemed to shake. 

  You can be small town and big world.