Nothing Is Wasted

Hello Bravehearted Beauties! I don’t know who’s here with me today, but I’d like to say a special hello to the ones who responded to my last post. You made raw and vulnerable feel so much less lonely. Thank you. Sometimes I don’t know why I write the things I do. Or why I publish them. Sometimes I want to take them back and just leave all this vulnerability and truth telling to the professionals! To the ones with a real following…the ones who make a real difference. And then I hear from one of you, and I’m reminded all over again that we are the ones who make a difference. You, Bravehearted Beauties, are the ones who make a difference. Your words, your hearts, your stories, your life. All of it matters.

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Today, I hear a new whisper in my heart: nothing is wasted.

I don’t know what the whispers mean when I first hear them. But when the words come with a promise that’s more than what my eyes see and my flesh feels, I know it’s from the heart of God. And when the whisper won’t go away, I sit down to write, on the computer or in my journal, just to see if God has more to say. {I’ve learned that apart from reading His word, I hear best when I write and speak.} So, Bravehearted Beauties, as I sit down to write today, like most days, I have no idea where the writing will take us. But we’ll find out together. And hopefully, there will be a gift in it for both of us! And if the words aren’t speaking to you today, I’m trusting the beauty will!

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God can use the craziest things to speak to our hearts. Today, it was a New York Times video about the importance of wild bees. They’re the primary pollinators in our food system and need a food source of their own to do their God-given job. {Not that the NYT calls it that.} I didn’t expect to read The New York Times today, but I saw the link on a high school friend’s Facebook feed, and the photo caught my attention because it looked just like one I’ve taken here on my farm!

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So I clicked on the link and watched the video. And thats when I heard the whisper: nothing is wasted.

You see, something only God knew, was how I’ve been feeling about wasting my first lavender harvest. After all my dreams of wanting to grow lavender and finally making it happen, I didn’t harvest a single spring. The plants I nourished last summer and protected during a harsh winter produced the most beautiful buds, and I left them hanging. I can’t even use the broken ankle as an excuse. They were ready for harvest in June.

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I was feeling guilt, shame, frustration and maybe even some hidden contempt toward myself over lavender. That may sound silly, but the enemy will capitalize on anything to make us feel less than who we really are. He’ll take what’s meant for delight and enjoyment and twist it into contempt, resentment, shame and guilt.

Because my goal was to harvest the lavender and dry it before the buds began flowering, every day that I saw more flowers made me feel like more of a failure. Until finally, the lavender was beyond harvest, and beyond usefulness in the ways I hoped to use it. As the unharvested lavender lingered, the lies grew louder.

The lies seem harmless at first. I’m a crappy gardener. Who cares? It’s fine if I stink at gardening. But as soon as you agree with one lie, there are dozens of others waiting to take you down further into the pit. I’m wasteful. I’m lazy. I’m not good at this farm life. In fact, I’m not good at anything. Can you feel the slide? The lies keep coming, and so often we keep agreeing without even knowing it. Until we get to the bottom and believe the worst about ourselves. I’m not good enough. I’m worthless. I’m not lovable. Even something as innocuous as a garden blunder can take you down that slippery slope. And until we choose to believe the truth about who we are, the lies keep us buried in places we were never meant to live.

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{This is where I generally pause in my writing and have a little talk with the Lord. I have no idea where I’m going with this, Lord. Is this what You really had in mind when I sat down to write? What does this have to do with your whisper that nothing is wasted? I ask all of this knowing I have the freedom to delete everything I’ve written. But if nothing is wasted, I’m going to trust that all of these words are exactly what someone’s heart needs. I give you my words, Lord.}

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Back to the lavender. As it began to flower, the bees and the butterflies began to feast. What felt like a failure to me became provision for them. Sure, I wanted to gather the buds into beautiful bundles and dry them for bath salts, cocktails, homemade Herbes des Provence, and other dreamy things. But nothing is wasted. My failure became their needed feast. It became the fuel for them to do what God designed them to do! I wonder how many of our supposed failures in life are the fuel for what God created us to do?

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Of all things, God used this New York Times video to whisper these things to my heart today. And not just in relation to lavender and bees, but everything that we’re tempted to deem wasted, failed, pointless or profitless.

Nothing is wasted.

 

 

P.S. Here’s a song for you: Nothing Is Wasted by Jason Gray. {Talk about beauty out of brokenness. He struggles with a stutter when he speaks, yet sings without a hitch!} May these words be like honey to your heart today!