Isaiah 28:23-29

23-26Listen to me now. Give me your closest attention.Do farmers plow and plow and do nothing but plow? Or harrow and harrow and do nothing but harrow?After they've prepared the ground, don't they plant? Don't they scatter dill and spread cumin,Plant wheat and barley in the fields and raspberries along the borders?They know exactly what to do and when to do it. Their God is their teacher.
27-29And at the harvest, the delicate herbs and spices, the dill and cumin, are treated delicately.On the other hand, wheat is threshed and milled, but still not endlessly. The farmer knows how to treat each kind of grain.He's learned it all from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, who knows everything about when and how and where.

The writer is drawing an analogy between the Lord's treatment of his various "crops" (peoples) and the farmer in his field. The farmer does not till his dirt forever, but just until it is properly prepared. Sometimes that soil requires the picking out of rocks, sometimes it takes extra nutrition in the form of fertilizers and amendments to support its crop. Each field is different and each crop is different. So preparation varies but the end result will be the same if a farmer prepares his land according to the requirements of the crop he has purposed to grow.
I need to be patient with others and with myself as each person in my life is a different "field" in an individual sense, as well as in a corporate sense of church family, government, nation, world. We are all at different places in life. Just as some crops will grow in Bakersfield's heat and thrive, others will shrivel and die if planted in the wrong time and place. Tomatos flourish in abundance in summer here, but fuscias, if they manage to survive the heat of summer, will die in the cold of the valley winters.

What a beautiful description of God's timing as he plants, nurtures, and harvests at so many different junctures in time, not as a commercial farmer would plough a field and then harvest one determinate crop at one time, but rather as a home gardner walks through his or her garden daily, pulling a weed here, watering a little extra there, watching each tomato or cucumber or pumpkin come into it's peak of flavor and ripeness before the harvest moment.
Father, I ask you to pull me back to the small garden where I can be effective, planting, weeding, and harvesting the crop in my plot rather than trying to plant huge fields which I cannot manage. Help me to be content with my garden, dilligent in its care, and vigilant to protect, nurture and care for the blessings of fruit that you allow me to harvest in Your time.

Mamogram day

I'd rather have a root canal procedure than a mamogram and of course, its Breast Cancer Awareness month and we are thinking about "the girls" and their health.

I had my mammogram this morning. What a way to start the day.

I arrived at the Kern Radiology here in town at 7:25. I signed in at 7:29. My appt. was for 7:30. I had written it down, I am sure of this. I checked in at the desk and the girl says to me, "You know, you are late!"

I said, "I beg your pardon? No, I am not late, my appt was for 7:30."

She tells me that's not true, I was actually scheduled for 7:10 and then she demands to know who I talked to who told me different.

I stared at her for several seconds, then said, "Really, are you kidding? Do you ask for the person's name and write it down when you make medical appointments? 'Cause I don't." What is she, nuts? I made this appointment a month ago, I don't remember who I spoke to.

So the girl gives me my update form to fill out and I go sit down to fill it in. When I bring the form back to her, she and the girl next to her are making jokes about being LATE!!! By now I am angry-- I asked her if I should just reschedule because obviously she has a problem with my arrival time, and she says, "Oh no, we were talking about ourselves, not you." UH huh. Sure. I buy that story.

So I go sit down to wait to be called. I watched, and this receptionist waits until 8:00 AM before putting my chart on the counter to be picked up by the technician. WHen I finally get called back by the technician, I asked her if I was being worked in instead of being treated like a regular appt., and she says no, she doesn't think anyone is ahead of me.

By now I am pretty upset. The women in the back office are so lovely and kind, and I am embarrassed because now I am not only dreading having the mash-o-gram, but I am angry and trying not to cry. Not fun. I end did manage to endure it by hunkering down in a corner of the room with the stupid gown on, and hiding behind a magazine from the other woman in the room.

Finally my name is called, I manage to get through the procedure without crying. Congrats to me!

The best part of this story is, this rude receptionist girl is unaware that the people who own the radiology place are people I know. I plan to write a nice letter and let them know all about the vindictive wenches they have working for them. I sorta feel like the woman in that movie, Fried Green Tomatoes, who, after the teenager whisks into her parking spot ahead of her at the mall, the older woman rams her car into the teen girl's vehicle, over and over and then says to her, "Ive got more insurance than you do."

Gotta love it!