Kim shared a message she received from Greg Laurie, a pastor,  this morning that kind of hit home to me of late.

“So many of us tend to run around in our self-made circles of activity instead of wisely and calmly sitting at His feet” and that “We need to be ready to hear what God has to say.”

The author goes on to use the parable of the sower from Matthew 13 where Jesus describes four reactions to hearing the truth.

First, there is the hard heart and the seed on the path or the roadside. The hard heart doesn’t receive the Word and therefore doesn’t produce any fruit.

Next is the shallow heart, which is the seed that fell on the ground filled with rocks and with shallow roots, the emotional who have no depth in their lives, thus bearing no fruit.

Then there is the crowded heart, the seed that goes into the soil embedded with weeds. This seed may take root and bear fruit initially, but the worries of life choke it out.

And of course, lastly, there is the seed that bears fruit, one that sows deep and therefore those will hear the truth in their hearts.

And it is up to us to decide whether we will have a hard heart, a shallow heart, a crowded heart, or a fruitful heart. We determine how we will allow God will affect our lives.  It’s up to us.

We decide if we want to hear with our ears, but not with our hearts.

 

Yeah, I get it.

 

I haven’t written in a while because I have been busy.  I guess I have been running around in my self-made circle of activity again.

 

That is not to say everything has been bad, not at all in fact.

 

Covid cases popping up in the Rehab facility my dad is in and at the Assisted Living where Kim’s mom resides has restricted our ability to visit our parents in the last month.

Though that has been hard we took advantage of our time off from worry and used one free weekend to bottle our newest vintage of Little Chickens Winery called  “Wedding Blend.”

Then I had to accompany Kim on a trip to Orlando sponsored by her company. I will admit that was hard, but I got through it.

 

Once home from Florida, we had the main event, which you might guess from the “Wedding Blend” was, a wedding.

Yup, Savannah and Leon finally tied the knot.

 

Now, you have to understand in my family, weddings haven’t historically been events to celebrate over the years, and typically when we have a wedding in my family, that means there is a divorce coming.

However, I don’t really believe that will be true of this family wedding or ever again.  And in fact, I said in my father of the bride toast, that finally on this day, I feel like all my girls are in a good place, they are all safe, and they are all happy.

And that makes me happy.

Of course, the side benefit of having a wedding is having all my kids and all my grandchildren together at the same time which generally doesn’t happen but maybe every other Christmas, in fact, Christmas of 2019 was the last time we were all together.

And that made me happy too.

Normally this past Saturday, November 6th being both Alexa’s birthday and Kim’s mom Faye’s birthday, one or both of us would be traveling maybe in the same direction, maybe not.  Though we had planned to be with Faye on her birthday, the covid restrictions wouldn’t allow that and since Alexa was having to endure her own trip to Orlando and in her case, Disney World this past weekend, Kim and I stayed home.

Instead, we used that time to perform the annual felling of the banana trees.  With Harry Belafonte, playing “De-O The Banana Boat Song” in the background on YouTube, I felled the bananas…trees that is and stacked them in my truck for a trip to the landfill.

Then to end the weekend on a nice note we spent the late afternoon bowling with Cameron, Savannah, and Leon.

In February of 2016, I wrote about bowling in an essay entitled Bowling for Cameron. Being around all my grandchildren on the days surrounding the wedding and also with Cameron on Sunday and my bowling reflection, I realized how much time does not wait for you to find your way out of the weeds. You can miss a lot.

So this morning on my way to work I thought about where my heart has been the last couple of years, and maybe the last many years.

Somewhere between being on ground filled with rocks, and being embedded in the weeds is my guess.

 

But this morning I felt different.

Our parents are in safe places.

My girls are in safe and happy places.

My family shared some way overdue time together as a family (and will do it again this Christmas.)

 

And I am happy.

And best of all, I am calm.

And I am not used to calm.

It is very strange.

 

But maybe that will allow me to pay attention more.

Maybe that will allow me to hear better now.

And not just with my ears.