Month: April 2026

Bugs

I planted the bulk of my summer garden this past week. Tomatoes and peppers and basil and oregano. Did someone say pasta sauce?

I had thought I would talk about the gift of plants brought to this healthy state by others with more time and expertise. I’m taking a class on how the church arrived at what is now considered orthodox belief. It makes me grateful that hundreds of theologians could spend hundreds of years in prayer and contemplation to help us make sense of the incarnation of Christ.

But the bugs distract me.

Little bees and larger wasps, ants and worms and slugs, flat stink bugs, and little orange ladybugs. The garden is full of them. The yard is full of them. The earth is full of them. I am told most of them, maybe even all of them, have a critical purpose in keeping our ecosystem alive and well, so I am fine to coexist with them, from a distance. I don’t want to touch them. I doubt they want me to touch them either.

Each of these little creatures has unique characteristics which enable them to do the tasks assigned to them. They are just living their little lives and in doing so keep the world balanced. Like the sea slugs that create beautiful shells they never see, built not for beauty but for protection, these bugs probably have no idea how vital their daily activities are.

A good garden needs worms. A healthy forest needs caterpillars that eat leaves and slugs that digest bark. Without those nasty flies, animals that die in the woods would litter the ground. But these creatures are just living their life, eating, bearing young, dying.

Their lives are short and seemingly insignificant. Who of us has not killed an ant or a cockroach? And yet, if there were no ants and no cockroaches, what would the world look like? We have learned what can happen when the bees and butterflies aren’t around to pollinate. I hesitate to think where we would be without those bugs that eat nasty stuff.

And God created them all and called it good.

I imagine that in the eyes of an immortal God, our lives might be short and seemingly insignificant. After all, He can create stars and oceans and mountains with a word. But God created us in such a way that each and everyone of us is important to the balance of the world, and to Him.

Never underestimate what God can do through one faithful person. Moses’s friends kept his arms lifted until the enemy was destroyed. (Exodus 17:8-13). Balaam refused to curse the Israelites as the king ordered (Numbers 22). Boaz was just overseeing the harvest of his crop when he met Ruth (Ruth 2). Mary shared her crazy story with the disciples (Luke 24:10).

What little thing is God encouraging you to do today? It may seem like nothing, like a worm making its way through the dirt, a caterpillar eating a leave, or a bee finding its favorite flower. You may be helping keep the world balanced. You may be planting a mustard seed. You may be getting rid of some nasty stuff. You have a purpose and the world needs you to fulfill that purpose.

Maybe these little bugs and our little lives are every bit as important as theology crafted aver hundreds of years. Maybe they are more important in the eyes of God.

Ask God how He wants you to spend your day today. You may admire a flower, change a diaper, or help a friend and thereby play a vital role in the universe.

God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good. Genesis 1:31.

Love in Christ, Betsy

A Task Not Done

The man who mows my yard informed me that his truck broke down. He had to wait on parts and for the repairs to be made. Meanwhile, my yard continued to grow.

I had invited some ladies to my house and as the day drew nearer, my anxiety over my yard grew. All the yards around mine were cropped short and looked loved and attended. My yard looked abandoned, unloved.

More than a poor reflection on the man who mows my yard, my knee-high grasses and flowering weeds were a poor reflection on me. I had failed in keeping my yard up to suburban expectations. We can argue about the validity of such expectations, but my un-mowed yard was an embarrassment to me and, I am sure, an embarrassment to my neighbors.

My guests might think that I didn’t care about my yard, that I didn’t value this property. My neighbors probably thought I was an absent landowner. They would doubt my wisdom in not hiring someone else to mow my yard. All because this task has not been done.

What tasks has God given me that I have been remiss in completing?

God calls me to welcome the stranger (Hebrews 13:2), feed the hungry (Matthew 25:35), and love my neighbor (Mark 12:31). When I fail at these tasks, it is not only a bad reflection on me, but also a bad reflection on God.

Does God not care about the world, about the hungry? Is He absent from this world? Why has He not eliminated all the unkind people from His church?

But, of course, the problem is not God. The problem is us. The problem is me. I call myself a Christian, but I have not always loved justice or walked humbly (Micah 6:8). I have not always offered food and drink to those in need (Matthew 25:42). I have not always cared for the foreigners living among us (Leviticus 19:33-34). What a poor reflection I am of the love of God.

I, therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Ephesians 4:1-3

Now that would be a yard that would make God proud.

Instead, I am making excuses for why I don’t live that way, why I don’t do what God has asked me to do, what I have told God I will do. Love God with all my heart and soul. Love my neighbor. Love my enemies. Forgive anyone who wrongs me. Turn away from sin. Trust in God’s provision for the day. Am I letting a broken-down truck keep me from fulfilling His desires?

As I was debating how long I would wait before I gave up on my mower and found someone else to tend my yard, he called to say his truck was fixed. He came over just a few minutes before my guests arrived. I thanked him and encouraged him to come more regularly in the future. He thanked me for waiting, for being patient with him. I feel like I have had these conversations with God, where I apologized for my actions, or lack of actions, and thanked Him for His patience. God, in turn, welcomed me, and encouraged me to come to Him more often.

I don’t want to be the servant left in charge of the master’s affairs who spends his time carousing and unkind. I want to be the servant the master finds hard at work when he returns (Matthew 24:45-51). I want to be the one who welcomes the stranger and feeds the hungry, who helps make this world a beautiful and loving place.

I want my actions to reflect well on the name of Christ. Don’t you?

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to God in heaven. Matthew 5:16.

Love in Christ, Betsy

A Kink in the Hose

The morning is quiet. Only the birds greet my presence in the yard, and their conversations most likely are not about me. A gentle breeze barely moves the leaves on my greening trees and hedges. A layer of clouds mutes the rising sun, but I do not expect rain. It hasn’t rained for days, and warmer-than-average temperatures have led me to the garden while it is still early.

My plants need water.

So, while the birds are still louder than the sound of cars on the nearby road, I take down the hose and water.

As I drag the hose along the garden, watering the garlic, the non-emergent beets, the raspberry and fig, the flow of water slows until finally, right as I am at my sugar snaps, the water stops completely.

I do not panic or fret. The world is not out of water. The city has not cut off my water supply. An angry God has not thwarted my plans. I look back along my garden and see where the hose has folded over on itself, kinked. The knot is not allowing the ever-present water to flow.

I shake the hose because sometimes the problem is fixed that easily. But the kink is too tight, the tangle too pressed for such an easy fix. I need to put down my nozzle and seek out the problem. I walk to the knot and gently unkink the hose, laying it in a line along the yard, allowing the water to flow freely once again.

Only then do I return to the spray nozzle, lift the hose, and send the life-giving water to the sugar snaps.

So, when you are offering your gift at the altar. If you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister. And then come and offer your gift. Matthew 5:23-24

Get the kink out and then the water will flow.

I often don’t think of prayer that way. Sometimes, I talk; He does what He wants. Perhaps I should think of prayer in the same way I think about watering my garden. Life-giving water is available. It can flow through me to encourage the world, or it can be bottled up and clogged by my selfish thoughts and actions. I can twist myself into knots, I can let relationships remain broken, I can hold onto resentments. I can refuse to make amends when I have offended someone. I can block the flow of water.

So often, when the water ceases to flow, when I no longer sense the presence of God, I begin to panic and fret. God may not be real. God is angry with me and has turned away from me. God is refusing to supply His life-giving presence.

Perhaps I need to set down my spray nozzle, leave my offering on the altar, seek out the problem, and rectify it. Am I letting a particular sin knot my life? Does my brother or sister have something against me? Has a habit or thought twisted my relationship with God?

You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. James 4:3

God wants to free us from the kinks that knot our lives. Abundant life awaits when the water flows freely, abundant growth, abundant fruit. So, if the water is not flowing today, I will take a moment and ask God to remind me what my brother has against me, to show me the knot in my life. With God’s help, I will unkink the hose and let the water flow freely once again.

Love in Christ, Betsy

The Importance of Water

It rained! Praise the Lord! And the rain stopped for Easter! God is so good!

Silly, letting weather affect my mood so, but I am grateful for the rain – and for the sun.

March was incredibly dry for Middle Tennessee. In a month when heavy rain often causes my creeks to overflow, this year, the third month brought little rain. I found myself carrying pitchers of water for my new trees and watering the garden like it was June.

Plants must have water.

As tempting as it is to fill my mornings with other things, if I don’t include time for watering my plants, they will suffer limited growth and limited fruit. It may take 5, 10, or 20 minutes, but I need to carve out the time to do this. Because not watering my plants may lead to no growth and no fruit.

I am grateful when the rain falls from the sky and relieves me of the obligation to water the garden. Rain is so much more beautiful and natural. But letting the environment, or the weather, determine the success of my garden is not wise. Letting the environment and my daily life determine my relationship with God is not wise either.

For my own growth and well-being, to have any chance of bearing the Spirit’s fruit, I need to spend time in prayer. When prayer doesn’t spring naturally from the rain or sunshine of daily life, I need to make the time to spend time with God. I need to carve out 5, 10, 20 minutes to be alone with God and water my soul with prayer and scripture.

There was a time when I rejected the idea of such a structured prayer time. Prayer shouldn’t be an obligation. I should come to the Lord when praise or despair leads me to Him. My prayer should spring spontaneously from my heart. Wasn’t that the problem with the Pharisees? They had made faith an obligation rather than a heartfelt choice.

But the garden has taught me that as beautiful as spontaneous rain falling from the heavens is, sometimes I need to get out my hose and water.

Sometimes the sunny dry weather we all enjoy can limit growth in my garden. The plants need water and I need prayer. If this does not happen spontaneously, I need to make it happen. Otherwise, I may become stagnate and begin to wilt. Otherwise, I may fail to grow, fail to bear His fruit. All for lack of water, all for lack of prayer.

The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you will be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Isaiah 58:11.

I encourage you to water your soul today. If God is not forcing you to your knees in praise or despair, take 5, 10, or 20 minutes to get there on your own.

And the God who sees you and hears your prayers will reward you with His presence, His love, and His fruit.

Praise the Lord. He is risen. He is risen indeed.

Love in Christ, Betsy

Something to Cling to

The forecasted rain has yet to arrive, so I head to the garden to water my emerging plants. The garlic thrives, the beets have yet to emerge, but this morning I am drawn to the sugar snaps. Their fragile tendrils reach into the air in search of something solid. Once found, they wrap themselves around the bars of the supports and hold on as if their life depends on it. Once secure on one rung, the plants grow ever upward.

This is Holy Week. What are you clinging to?

Easter traditions of a meal with family? New Spring clothes to herald warmer weather? The laughter of little children discovering eggs filled with treats? What does Easter mean to you?

The Church offers many ways to observe Holy week – The waving of branches and singing of Hosanna; Holy communion in remembrance of the last supper, Passion plays and the stripping of the church, gatherings in the garden, sunrise services, and exuberant Easter celebrations. The known world was changed forever by the actions of this small group of people in a remote backwater. Because they clung to the eternal support shown to them on Easter morning. Jesus the Christ rose from the dead.

There are lots of big words and complex theologies about the why and the how, about who Jesus was and is, about God’s nature and divine will and the Word. We want to understand that which is so much more complicated and complex and powerful than we are. But perhaps faith is best expressed in a story.

The story of a man who claimed to be the Son of God and was put to death for it. And on the third day, on that non-descript Sunday morning, he rose from the dead, proving that his claims were true.

That is what we can cling to. God did something amazing, unbelievable even. But it happened.

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with he scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, although some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 1 Corinthians 15:3-7.

Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

We are about to commemorate the beauty of the last supper, Jesus’ obedience in Gethsemane, the horrors of the crucifixion, the despair at his death. It can be tempting to live in that space, to cling to his suffering and his humanity. When we are suffering, it helps to know he suffered as well, even more so than we suffer now. We remember him washing Judas’ feet, dining with him, offering him bread and wine, and know he offers this to us sinners as well.

We can absorb the horrors of Holy Week because we cling to the truth of Easter Sunday.

The wind has been gusty for days now. An outdoor picnic led to plates blown off the table and toys blown across the yard. We were clipping the tablecloth to the table and weighting the boxes of egg dye.

The sugar snaps were unaffected by the wind gusts. They held firm, clinging to the truth of the trellises offered to them.

This is Holy Week. What are you clinging to?

Love in Christ, Betsy