Green Seeds of Grace

 

So today our Joy dare is 3 gifts green. At first I thought, "I don't even know of anything green", and then I went to get breakfast and "remembered" (ha!) that my kitchen was green - there was the first gift right there! So of course, thinking about my kitchen made me think about food (along with everything else in life making me think of food! lol!) so I named off a few of my favorite "green" foods. And then, I got to thinking about gardens and how much fun it was to till and plant the garden with my parents when I was growing up. Which then got me to thinking about seeds, which led me to Ann Voscamp's devotion on "Seed Grace." I need to write one of those "If you give a mouse" books with this! But none the less here it goes...

Genesis 1:29 says "Behold I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food." This was done on the sixth day of creation. And then on the seventh day, God rested. Seeds. I remember planting that garden and looking forward to putting the seeds in the holes that my parents would make. Cucumber seeds were some of the smallest, especially compared to lima bean seeds. But they were all small relative to the plants they would grow and the crop that they would give. Seeds. God gave us the gift of seeds during creation and said that they would provide food. Small things that seem pretty insignificant that would grow to feed families, communities, and the world. Seeds. At times, it is hard to believe that one can take something so small, stick it in the ground and have food! Because sometimes the seed does not look like near enough. Seeds. Grace.

Suppose you were starving (which I know nothing of) - belly swollen starving - and you were handed seeds and told to believe in a feast that was within? It would seem that someone was trying to fool you? But is that not what faith is? What grace came to do in our lives? Ann Vosamp says:

"Behold! for those who have learned to see - He gives, He gifts. He gifts with seeds as small as moments, grace upon grace, and the unlikely here and now, it shall sustain you, feed you. Do not disdain the small. The promise of feast is within the moments. Our enough is always in the now, because He never leaves us."

You see we easily forget that our God is bigger than anything and that He is bigger than any problem we have. Our God not only made the feast but He made the seed to start it. From beginning to end, He is there and it is only when we stop and appreciate the small "joys" in life that He gives us that we see the feast of thanksgiving that is awaiting us. Seeds. Grace. Feast. Praise. Thanksgiving. Eucharisteo. One Thousand Gifts...and more!

 Donna