Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
It was destined to be a warm day, the early morning temperature having just broken 70 degrees and the world was starting to awaken. The leaves on the trees were still wet from rain the night before, and the grass was wet with dew. The sun was just starting to break though the morning fog and everything was glistening. The air was cool against my skin, and my coffee was hot in my hand as I walked through my backyard, towards our apple trees. Usually on mornings like this I think, “Today would be a great day to be camping,” always wishing for something other than what is right in front of me. But on this day I thought, “today is a great day to pick apples early in the morning,” which is what I was doing.
When we bought our house we were blessed by the previous owners with blueberry bushes, grapevines, and a small variety of fruit trees. However with these blessings all of these trees, bushes and vines, came a heavy workload. The first few years it was just too much. The apples had always been very small and seemed hardly worth harvesting.
Then the trees started getting very overgrown, and we feared losing this valuable asset if we didn’t do anything with them so we went out a few years ago and did some pruning, more or less guessing if we had taken enough, too little, or too much. The following year we had a baby and fruit trees were the last thing on my mind.
This summer I hadn’t given much thought to the fruit trees either when my mother pointed out an abundance of apples hanging from the branches. She was right (yes as usual Mom) there were so many apples! The pruning we had done a couple years before had laid a foundation for some healthy growth producing big, luscious apples.
I was picking apples and greatly enjoying my early morning picking session and seeing bag after bag grow full with ripe apples. I have always had this fantasy of someday, living on enough land that we could have a small farm if we wanted, although I’m not sure about livestock and chickens. (Check out my post Do You Have the Faith of a Chicken? to see why I’m not sure about the livestock!) I picture myself having a garden and some fruit trees and canning food, baking pies and waiting for my sourdough bread to rise- and having enough time to do all this!
I always picture this as a “someday” dream, because while sure, there is always a way to make these things happen, we are also content with where we are now. Still the thought floats through my mind, “Someday we will have more land, and more time and I will do all the things I’d like to do now.”
Do you have “Someday” thoughts of your own?
What picking apples taught me that early morning was sometimes the dreams we hold in our heart are closer to our reality than we often take time to realize. Farming and growing your own produce connects you to the earth in a way that nothing else does. When you feel the grass brushing your feet, the damp soil beneath your feet you can’t help but be amazed that the same soil that supports your feet, also supports the tree that grew your food, and carries enough nutrients in it to nourish you, and grow babies into energetic children.
When you take the time to pick the apples by hand you realize life is fast for everyone- it takes intentionality to slow down enough to savor it.
As I stood there picking apple, after apple, I realized that this was it- my dream. Sure, I pictured more; more time, more trees, more land, more jars to fill with preserves, but- this was still it. I was picking apples off of my trees, taking time to enjoy the morning, and savoring the slow process that my grandmother did as a child and hope to teach to my child someday.
So often we dream of someday and miss the beauty that is right in front of us. We forget that just as I laid the foundation by pruning my trees, so God uses circumstances to lay the foundation in our lives to ready us for future tasks He has for us to do. So often we rush through our day to day lives, not realizing that the life we want and love, is right in front of us.