Oh my, but it's hot! Everywhere, it seems. The baby woke me this morning at 6 am and I took advantage of the the moments before the sun was beating down to go water the garden.
That enormous groundhog has chewed my zucchinis down to nothing. This garden is mostly for fun, but it gets me so angry. I walk around and see the leaves eaten off the peppers, tomatoes chomped to bits and holes dug in all the boxes and it takes every ounce of self control for me not to stamp my foot and yell.
I could walk away. I could stop coming out here, pulling weeds, nursing mangled plants. I could keep the hose rolled up and just let that varmint have it all. I could turn my back.
Something stops me. Hope, perhaps? I keep watering. The baby splashes in the stream from the hose. We find a few beans that are ready to eat and I hand him one. Maybe there is still hope for this garden. That's what keeps me coming back.
Hope is all I really have to go on. In the raising of vegetables...and in the raising of children. Hope is what I cling to when I look around and all is not right in this home and in my heart.
Isaiah 58:11- "And the LORD will...satisfy your desire in scorched places, And give strength to your bones; And you will be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail."
In the afternoon, I sip iced tea and rock a sweaty baby in the chair pulled right in front of the fan. I hope for a cooler tomorrow. In keeping hope alive, hope keeps us alive. Hope keeps us moving forward. Hope is something to hold to when the days heat up.
The truth is, when we keep watering, our hope springs right up. Even when everything else is being gnawed to bits. Even when its 107 degrees and the kids are fighting and these rooms are suffocating and the baby can't nap - keep watering.
Steeped in Living Water, hope is kept alive, each and every moment.
