A Promise of Celebration

The praising man in ice

If the little man in ice were real I know exactly how he feels...trapped.  This journey feels like being trapped sometimes....often asking "Will this struggle ever end?"  I've been asking that question a lot lately it seems and again my week started with having to face the challenges brought on by physical pain and weakness. I have been struggling internally and angry since the results of my recent MRI and talking with my chiropractor who was less than encouraging only made things worse. I found I have been wrestling with God about this whole issue because of how things are happening and not in a particularly healthy way either.  My wresting has been robbing my peace and causing me to become impatient with others, that person I don't like being. 

Even after God's specific instructions to wait, to let Him do the doing I still fight it.  It's easier to said than done to trust when you are someone who has always had to find help on your own.  It doesn't matter that God wants me to just be still and not fight against the way He is doing things, I want so badly to find answers and relief and it's not coming...at least not yet and this waiting is hard and I don't like it.  I don't think that it is that I don't think God will do something, it is that I don't know how to really wait or maybe what the heck am I supposed to do while I wait.  Am I supposed to do anything at all? 

God knows me well and all those internal struggles I go through and my heart that desires to please Him even when I struggling...yes I do want His will most of all.  So in spite of my struggling God being ever so patient and faithful knew exactly what I needed and did not correct me for struggling or failing to trust Him completely.  Instead He spoke quite clearly through a good friend as she stood and preached about God taking ugly things and transforming them...specifically the cross, into lasting symbols of redemption, grace and forgiveness.   Then these words came out of her mouth, "Your weakness will be your celebration." and I knew God was looking directly at me telling me what He is going to do next... Tears immediately began to stream down my face as I felt the finger of God touch my heart and my heart begin to let go of its struggle...but not all the way.

I must confess I don't know what it looks like at all to live transformed in this manner or even sort of feel that way about this life of pain.  And this letting go doesn't seem to be happening overnight as I found myself still struggling this morning.  Old habits die hard I guess.  All I know is that this struggle has robbed me of so much it has left me with little to feel celebratory about other than God is using it. 

Knowing all the Bible verses relating to such a word hasn't made me feel any better or turned me into an instant expert on it either.  That is only head knowledge and of little value when the soul is crying out for mercy.  What I lack is true heartfelt understanding of what it means...and it seems God is planning on showing me what that means.   This is same work that God did in the heart of King David enabling him to say "You have turned for me my mourning into dancing" in Psalm 30:11 and that same transformative power that takes a horrific symbol of payment owed for wrongs committed like the cross and turns it into a symbol of grace and mercy and of His love.  It is the transformative power God.

I find those words spoken through my friend so beautifully compelling and I hear is His voice, my Abba Father's voice, every time I read them.  It is as though HE is saying it to me out loud "This is my will for you and what I will do in you!" so I read them over and over again, letting the sound and spirit of them sink deeply in my spirit.

My heart is responding with such a longing to experience what God says He will do and my soul is encouraged.  My spirit is hungry for His good will to be accomplished within me.  Am I nervous about how it might happen?   Yes, I have to say I am, but I am not afraid and am not going to sit here and dredge up all the various ways I think that might happen.  That is just a waste of time and energy as I have no control of what God has planned...not to mention it would be the perfect way to open the door to worry and fear and become bound with anxiety.

This ability to celebrate will not be achieved any other way than by His work in me and only God knows how to accomplish the necessary work that will transform the pain of weakness of this struggle into my celebration.  It is God taking what is not and making it so, God taking what the enemy meant for evil and using it for the good of those who are His own.  It is the kind of thing that cannot be accomplished by human strength of will or through constant quoting of scripture and claiming them in faith any more than we can save ourselves.  This"celebration" will only become reality through the work of the Holy Spirit according to God's will in me...or in you if and when you come to this place in your walk.  Then and only then will this "celebration" be born in my/our hearts and not just in our minds, born of truth and not just something we worked ourselves up into "feeling".  It will not be the sinking sands of emotionalism or vain imaginations but foundational truth built in us by God...built in me and built in you.

This is one of those times when I can say, "Though my heart and flesh may fail me God is my strength and my portion forever" and really mean it.  If it were up to me I would just give up, through in the towel, get angry and stay angry, fill up with self pity or even self loathing and become a pitiful example of a suffering saint.  How grateful I am He is not leavning me as He found me and not forsaken me...or you too for that matter.  And I mean that. 

Here's to more adventures in discovery as God works in us in ways we could never imagine.   



Copyright © 2013 by Patty Hicks

All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. All reviews must include author's name and a link back to this blog.

2013 Challenge: To Not Sew a Single Seed

Catalogs became the voice of the devil to me

What would happen to my life if I didn't sew a single seed in my garden?  I began wondering about this a few years ago when pain levels in my back began making it increasingly difficult to garden and have decided actually do it and see what will happen.  That may not sound hard to some of you, but for someone like me who has passionately gardened for decades, I am finding it at times to be very challenging.

For instance, those seed catalogs that I so love to see come in the mail have turned into the voice of the devil to me.  No more fun shopping those gorgeous photos of luscious lettuces and tempting tomatoes.   I wouldn't you know it, I opened my mailbox the day after making this decision and out popped two of my very favorite seed catalogs on the same day. "NO, NO, NO! This is not fair!" I shouted waving them in the air so God could see them and everyone else too, laughing at the irony of it all.  My neighbors must think I am a loon sometimes.

When the seed packets were put out at our local grocery store I just had to peek.  Just once you know...take a little peek to see if there was anything new this year which I realized was really seeing what I was going to be missing and a really bad idea too by the way.  Standing there in the isle in front of God and everybody I suddenly realized  I could not buy a single one of them even if I wanted to!  Resisting the temptation to envision gorgeous lush Mascara lettuce plants or killer Laciniato kale or beautiful Bull's Blood beets I could grow was awful and hard and sad.  The reality of it all, even though I knew it was good for me was harder than I expected and my eyes welled up with tears.  Suddenly I realized I had better get away from the racks before I lost it completely.

This whole exercise in letting go of growing from seed is probably good for me I keep telling myself.  Not probably, it is actually very good for me and for two reasons.  First, because I have chronic back pain, 24/7 rob your life kind of chronic pain, back pain that has gotten so bad that it is basically crippled me.  I can't sew seeds if I cannot take care of the plants and to take care of the plants I need to be able to shovel, which I can't do, and I can't kneel or bend to weed, and I absolutely cannot lug a hose...you get the picture.  (I still secretly dream of digging...I miss digging more than any others work in the garden.)  I know I need to be careful with what I do and that means the gardening has to go.  This pain was the impetus for my taking on this challenge which also has made it easier to accept.  Hopefully it will be a part of me sticking to it too.  Harder is convincing other people that gardening is not something I should be doing right now.

Some of you are probably wondering why I don't get my husband to garden. Let me stop you right there before you attempt to voice that thought...No! No! No!  That man, who I love dearly, is best when he just fixes things and stays out of the garden!  We all have things we just cannot do very well and his is gardening so don't even go there!  He proved that long ago when I trusted him to help water the veggie garden while I was at a family reunion.  I demonstrated what needed done and recommended what not to do and why...he did the later.  I got home to find half the tomato plants had died for lack of water because he thought he set up this smart watering system, the one I warned him not to.  I just cannot trust the man because he is always trying to do things by "sciencing them out" which almost always fails. (ugh...Sorry Honey...I love ya but you are no gardener.) 

At this point I have not been able to take care of the garden as it should be for three years and I am more than ready to let it go.   It has become a bit of a nightmare and needs a total makeover, as in an "extreme garden makeover".  Outside of a miracle that will not be happening by my hand unless I gain my health back and even then the desire to garden like I used to just isn't there anymore.

God has been trying to get it through my thick scull that there is something else He wants me do besides gardening which honestly was my whole life for several years.  I kept getting nudges to use other gifts and talents, like writing and art...not that I am incredibly artistic but God has this crazy way of taking what we have and making it wonderful so I am game.  But what should I do?  That was and is the big question for me right now.  There are enough options that it is making this pretty exciting actually. 

There are a lot of friends out there who know only that I know a lot about plants and little else about me.  It has been difficult for them to wrap their minds around the idea of me not gardening because it was my identity for so long.  To them I have always been "Patty the Plant Lady" and gardening is what I do!  I am Patty who talks in Latin and can grow anything from cuttings and Patty, the lady everyone goes to with their plant questions.  Yes, that WAS me, and I am still that person...just not like I used to be, I am becoming more.

Gardening and plants had taken up so much of my life I think I got lost in the process; I had become a "gardenaholic" as we gardeners jokingly say.  But honestly I think I really was addicted to it.  I used it as an escape, as my identity and I buried myself beneath it like a drunk hides in his bottle. The truer me was trapped beneath it all, my desires laying dormant, waiting to grow, to bloom the way God intended for me too from the beginning. 

This has been confirmed to me as since having to let go of being "the gardener" I have seen an increased desire to grow in other areas that were not as well cultivated as my plant nerd self was.  Desires to do things I used to do and some things I've never done before have been sprouting up like spring seedlings.  It's time for those other things to be brought forward and I am really excited by some of the possibilities.

So by laying down my trowel, the shovel and hoe, giving away all the seeds of temptation I have stored up in my pretty little heart and head, I am now opening my hands and my heart to what God has next.  I am getting ready for my next assignment and gaining better understanding of who this me is that God has designed so wonderfully.  Preparing myself in mind and body, through studying scriptures, reading books, working hard on getting my back health restored...it is me taking this journey hand in hand with my God, one step at a time.  It will be interesting to see where it takes me and I look forward to what I will discover.  Stay tuned!

Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plant for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.



Copyright © 2013 by Patty Hicks

All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. All reviews must include author's name and a link back to this blog.

Falling in Public and Other Summer Fun

Yes I am having fun, can't you tell?

Lets just say this has been one of the most interesting few weeks I have had in a very long time.  First off I have been trying for weeks to write but was taking a medicine for chronic pain that left me feeling mentally dead and unable to write or even come up with things to write about.  That was like losing my soul so when it stopped working for the pain I was happy to stop taking it.  I have always thought that stuff was brain poison anyway and you should have seen the doc's face when I called it that.  Let's just say he didn't find funny but oh well.

Anyhow, the day after my last dose of the brain poison I decided to go to the local farmer's market and while stepping up on to the curb, I caught my toe and fell in front of EVERYONE full force onto my right hand. (Uhg...why is this kind of thing always in front of a crowd?)  As I layed there unable to get up I looked at my poor hand.  Yup...this was not good.  There was what looked like a bone out of joint or something sticking up on the right side of my hand above the wrist joint and I could not turn or bend it.  I waiting wondering if anyone was coming to help and felt like people had just evacuated the sidewalk when I fell...that was a really weird feeling.

It took onlookers what seemed like forever to figure out I could not get up on my own and those who helped were so sweet. I was laying there on my back and they were all trying to help me up not knowing I could not get up from a sitting position.  It was a circus of kindness but they finally got me on my feet. (Thank you to all of you who helped...whoever you are.)

I was in shock for about 15 minutes and given a comfortable chair and some ice for my wrist and then I drove myself back home and wrapped it up and tried to not use it.  That was interesting.  Try not using your favorite hand for an evening and see how you do.

The boat cast the doc first put on my hand that lasted 24 hours

By Monday I was at the Urgent Care clinic, x-rays showed it was indeed broken and my paw was set in a boat cast (a type of splint that is made up of the lower half of a fiberglass cast).  I got to stand along side the doc and read the book on how to treat this type of injury.  I now know the names of th bones in my hand...well some of them and in my arm too. (I'm a nerdy girl and eat this stuff up).  My doc was not very up on how to treat my injury and I knew it but gave her the benefit of the doubt.

By Tuesday morning I was ready tear the boat cast off my hand and throw it through our front window after a night of constant readjustments and rewrapping the darn thing.  It just wasn't staying where it needed too and the nerve pain it was causing was ridiculous.  The first thing I called the doc who told me I definitely didn't need a cast (yippee I think) and I could use a store bought splint but it needed to be a firm one and that I needed to be able to move my fingers "a lot".  I am a notoriously bad patient when it comes to not using my hand as I have discovered too.

So here I am...it will be 2 to 4 weeks stuck in a splint before I am back to being able to using my hand freely again and typing with a single finger is honestly a drag.  No gardening, no crafting, I can sort of cook but can't chop veggies so what fun is that?  I should get a video of me trying to dish up food...that is laugh.

At this point I am painfully aware of every curb or step I cross and am getting board out of my mind.  So how's your summer going?  I hope you are all staying safe, remember to pick up those feet when you step up on curbs and thanks for listening.  If you have a funny story you wanna share here, feel free.  I could always use another reason to laugh.

Gardening in Slow Motion

Today has been one of our rare sunny days this spring.  Its usually not as cool or wet as it has been this year so I am behind on getting the gardening done.  I've learned over the years to not let the shifting sands of weather patterns ruffle my feathers...its a more enjoyable task if I don't and just go with the flow.  So today with the sunshine I went with getting our veggie boxes sown the rest of the way.  I found it took me a lot longer than it used to.

One entire bed and half of another finally sowed and transplants in.
I'm spent.

The first job was adding steer manure to the beds.  Just an inch or two in bed #2 where the potatoes were to be sown, raking it over the top, forking it in and then smoothing it out to level.  How I long for the days when this was not a pain filled moment and I could just sail through this job.  Life isn't like it used to be, back injuries and Fibromyalgia now plague my attempts to do anything like I used to.  Life is different...like moving in slow motion.

Its quite a change for me to move slowly because I am the girl who instead of wanting to learn to do dance moves on my roller skates was more inclined to run you over doing ninety along with the boys.  I love the wind in my hair and that feeling of nearly being able to fly.  I think that's what got me into some of this physical trouble I now suffer.  Its been a hard but good teacher for me this pain and I'm learning that slow is ok...it's not bad...its just different...and I won't lie...its hard.

Florence Fennel seedlings...Pushed through the pain to get them planted
I am looking forward to the harvest now.

I'm also learning that even though my mind sometimes disconnects with the fact that I can't do everything or do what I'm planning to as quickly as I used to, that doesn't mean my life is over. I've had to surrender a lot of things, my beautiful dooryard garden which is now very weedy because I can't weed anymore or dig and divide the plants.  Gardening in general has had to be laid on the alter of disability...or should I say gardening in the manner I used to.  No longer can I head off with wild abandon dragging home whatever latest plant I see or hand digging the entire front yard so I'm certain every boulder and large rock is gone.

I'm still tempted beyond any reason but I've learned I have to say no.  Actually I've been tempted to stop gardening all together, to literally hang up the rake and trowel and say "why bother any more" and just have a couple nice containers of flowers by the front door and call it good.  But gardening does something for me...its cathartic and peaceful work that I believe God has gifted me with understanding of.  I truly love how plants work, I can propagate almost anything I get my hands on (that's dangerous) and everything in the garden truly amazes me.  I know it is His gift to me as no other thing makes me feel the way I do when I am in the garden.  I hear better, I see better, I think better.

Weeds speak volumes of my physical limitations but not of my true desires

These days, because of my pain levels, I am bound to think about the reality of what I can manage physically.  I can no longer care for perennials that are strong growers or roses either for that matter.  I just got rid of two roses I so loved but proved to be too much for me to care for.  In my heart of hearts I want to cry out...NO...I loved them but they were inconsiderate of me in how they grew and began spreading throughout the garden overtaking other plants and creating a huge thicket in my tiny front yard garden.  In so many ways my garden has become like a crying child to me, a child I cannot comfort or meet the needs of as I used to.  That is what gardening with physically disabling pain is like for me.

Thicket of unconcerned roses

I started out to write about the accomplishments in the vegetable garden and instead here I am sharing how my life in the garden has changed because of physical pain.  I hope some where someone is needing to hear this, needed to hear that they are not alone.  Sometimes, many times, for me it feels like that, like I am all alone.  When I look out my window at the weeds and overgrown areas in my garden, a garden that I was once able to tend with great care and now can care little for my heart is a bit sad.  My garden used to be on tours, it used to be truly beautiful.  Now I'm relegated to finding beauty amid the ensuing chaos of neglect.  So you are not alone who ever you are.  I am here too.  I know how you feel.

May your garden be blessed and your heart as well,
~Patty~



Copyright © 2011 by Patty Hicks

All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. All reviews must include author's name and a link back to this blog.