Sunflower Faith

My apologies for not posting as much as usual, but I’ve really taken a lot of time to just concentrate on not only homeschooling and gardening but spending time with my family, working on the garden and taking that always needed mini-sabbaticals in life to just spend time with our Heavenly Father, contemplate life and well….let Him talk.

It was a much needed break for the soul and lot of things to reflect on.

During the time, my roma tomato plants fell under the menacing jaws of Murphy the Dachshund and when it happen, I remember thinking with fear I had lost the plants. They were still seedlings and he had torn them out of the pot and I feared that the roots and the plant itself were gone, but rather than just throw them away, I gave them a chance…I planted them and at the time, it seemed the plant was gone for good.

The leaves look shriveled and not really wanting to give them up just yet (I was an optimist), I stripped the plant back and just water it and let it be.

We have had some pretty good storms, these past few weeks go by, and between that and just starting fresh again, it was apparently what the plants needed, because as I went out to check on all the plants, I realized that the leaves were growing back on the roma tomatoes and growing stronger and taller than before.

How often are we like that with ourselves and life?

Feeling like we are stripped of everything, barely just hanging on and feeling what else is there?

I think many of us tend to feel like that…I pretty much felt close to just tossing out that roma tomato plant, but something just told me to hold on and see it through before I gave up so soon.

 Habbakkuk 3:17-18 (NIV)

Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines, 
though the olive crop fails 
and the fields produce no food, 
though there are no sheep in the pen 
and no cattle in the stalls,  yet I will rejoice in the LORD, 
I will be joyful in God my Savior.

 Seeing the green leaves on the plant and knowing that maybe by mid summer if not the end, I will have roma tomatoes, was a strong reminder that we all will have periods in our life when we may feel like we are in a desert or everything in life seems to be collapsing, but that we have to hold on to our Heavenly Father like He is holding on to us, because through and in us, He uses us to teach us and to reach out to others.

It is through those moments of uncertainity, of feeling stripped , of feeling  imperfect, that He uses at some point or time to reach through others that are in need of Him.

I had one of those moments.

Very unexpected moments to be exact.

And the funny thing was that it was planned, which made it perfect.

I wasn’t at my best, which made it perfect.

It was me at my most human, that God shone through and it was in that moment, not only did I learn, but I pray and hope that through and in my imperfection, He was able to use me to reach another.

I rarely share my testimony; I do with other Christians, but mostly out of shyness and being inhibited, rarely with strangers or even with the neighbors.

Come to think of it.

I rarely talk about being a Christian with them.

I mean…I don’t make a show of it.

I don’t wear a neon cross or t-shirt and if you saw me, unless I told you, or saw you at church, I don’t flash it like a brand.

If people ask, I tell them.

I don’t hide I read my bible, but I don’t make it a show either.

So….it was…well…a first, I guess, you can say, when I shared about being a Christian, how and why I was a Christian with my neighbor who was moving…and you know what.

It humble me.

It humble me because I realize how much being a Christian meant to me and this was the first time I did it without the safety of being in Church and saying, “yeah I’m a Christian”.

I really hadn’t plan on talking about Christ with her.

Who does?

Well, I didn’t. Lol

I had invited her in for tea and coffee cake and thought we were going to talk about her moving and plants and sports and fashion….

My oldest had pointed to something I written on the calendar and I had casually said, “Honey that’s a church event we are going to” and my neighbor looked up with curiousity and said, “You go to church?”

“Oh yes”, I reply,”Every Sunday”, and I did something I couldn’t believe I would do, I asked her if she would like to visit our church (she is thinking about it and said when they can, they actually would like to try in the near future so please, if you are reading, this, pray that an opportunity will arise that our Father would reach them in their hearts to give it a try at least).

She then asked if I was a believer.

I told her, “Yes, I believe that Jesus Christ lived and had died to pay the price of our sins and that I had accepted Him as my Lord and Saviour”.

She stood there….and asked me, “You believe this?”

“Yes” I said,” I believe and know when I die I will go to heaven and that I’m imperfect but that for my sins, Christ paid the price for me and her”.

She asked how did I know?

I told her…”Accepting Christ as our Lord and Saviour is about having a personal relationship with Him. I can’t describe being married, I just am married. I know I’m imperfect and that being a Christian doesn’t mean everything is instantly better, but that He has done the hard work, my job is to let Him work through and in me, to be the person He wants all of us to be. To know that I’m imperfect and I make mistakes yesterday, today and tomorrow, and always, but it’s not about perfection. He loves us as us. He doesn’t want us to make mistakes, but He offers us the hope to overcome and His love is so great that He has already say, Hey…I died for you. So when God sees us, He doesn’t see the messes we had made, but Jesus Christ and the potential that even Jesus Christ knows we have in us.”

I told her,”Right now, its hard for her to explain because when she is ready, she will know in her heart, but that final step was hers and that journey was her and everyone’s journey is different. I know just by the faith in my heart, through the blessings of knowing when I wake up each day, what makes it different is that there is hope each day, hope through Him. He’s there for her and when she’s ready, she’ll know when to take that next step.”

She went, “But I have hope in myself”

And I said,”Yes but we also have doubt in ourselves”,”Through Him, He is always there. There is no doubt. He already knows what we can be. People will leave us. Things will happen, but He doesn’t. He is there through our prayers, it’s our way of talking to Him, not to ask for things, but to talk to Him, and it’s in His word, through the bible. I know He is there and I don’t have to see Him to know He is there. He was there when I wasn’t ready and He is there when I am. If hope in us was all it took, then wouldn’t we be filled and happy? God gives us what we can’t give ourselves.”

I realized..how much Christ meant to me and how much Christ is needed for others to really get to know Him and to have a personal relationship with Him.

My neighbor kept going to me, “This calm…what is this calm I see in you, I’ve never seen this” and all I could think of was…”Calm? What Calm? Uhm…I’m talking a mile a minute and feeling like a clown, I’m calm? What? Huh? Who? Me?”

2Timothy 2:15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

I didn’t think I was being calm and thought I was the worse person at that moment to be telling her about Christ. Lol.

Me?

Uhm..I’m not qualify…

Nope.

Nada.

Wrong person.

It was one of those times I told myself, “Okay stop talking; You sound like an idiot; You have NO idea what you are saying and you just turn her off….”

And know what she said?

“I want to know more..can I come over maybe next week and we talk more and you can tell me more about having a relationship with Christ”.

Please pray for me (BIG TIME,lol), but really, please pray that Our Heavenly Father will touch her heart and if not through my complete incompetance, maybe at least, a seed maybe sown and through that seed, He will and can touch her heart and reach her like He has reached me, you, all of us and from that seed….hope in and through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ will grow.

I am probrably and should have been the last person she talked to and I just hoped I handled it well. I wasn’t ready; I wasn’t sure if I said the right things,lol.

I do know…I pray that God can use this broken, incompetant vessal to reach her and if not her, maybe through her someone who doesn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ yet.

I know for this soul, it really humbled me and just struck home that we can’t always have a nice, neat scripted moment to share Christ with someone.

It maybe the neighbor you normally don’t talk to and in that time and moment that is good for God and not for you, that He uses you to open a new door with someone.

It might be that stranger in the grocery line and God decides that is a time for you to share your faith and it may feel uncomfortable to you, but it is what He needs to use to touch the heart of someone who needs Him and has been searching.

Or as one lady shared, it was in a dressing room, she shared her faith with another lady, she overheard talking and led that lady and her family to a new home and relationship with Jesus Christ.

Sometimes the best moments, aren’t the moments that are good for you, but the moments that are good for God.