Doubling-Down on Goodness || The Cultivating Project

On our drive home from a hike the other day my husband stopped the car so I could take a picture of the field of camas flowers our little town is named for. The story is that the Native Americans saw this valley from the mountain top and thought it was a lake, for all the blue-purple camas flowers that flooded the valley floor. Even with all the bales of hay that have been cut and the cows who have grazed, the tractors that have tilled and turned over so many bulbs, the flowers still come up. I think they’ve doubled this year.

It’s almost May and I think spring has really doubled-down on everything. There are more buds on my peonies than ever; the grass seems thicker; there are so many birds at the feeder that I am filling it daily, already; and the dogwood blossoms seem extra-large this year. Maybe I am just more aware? I hope that much is true, but I do think it’s possible spring is being “extra” this time. The neighbor’s cow even had twins.

My essay for The Cultivating Project looks at the ways we are required to stay awake to goodness, especially when it’s tempting to see only the way things are hard and we mess up and are messed up. If nature can double-down on goodness, I hope we can, too.

Here is my real, circular life: I am forgetful, tired, slow, and sometimes lazy. I am concerned that my laziness is actually sloth, but when I look it up sloth is defined at its core as a lack of care. And I’ve been there, but I am not there now. I am not too much of any of my faults to resist the Spirit Who says come. I am the Bride who says come, and I can show you the slow way, the way to get enough rest, the tricks to help you remember. In this circling life of ascents I am not the fastest or the first and probably you aren’t, either; but I care—for my body, because it’s where God has determined He and I will commune, and for my place, because it’s what He has appointed for me. I care for my physical life and make room in my physical place for God to be the great, good surprise. 

Please join me here at The Cultivating Project to read the whole essay, and be sure to poke around at all the beauty Cultivating has to offer—photography, recipes, essays, interviews. Thanks, friends. Keep doing the smallest, best things for His glory.