My eyes fail, looking for your promise; I say, “When
will you comfort me?” (Psalm 119:76)
The past couple days have been tough.
Dad’s mental dictionary doesn’t include words like cooperate except as applied
to others. I can understand his frustration with me. I’m not good at asking his
opinion or permission when I’m trying to get things done that I believe need to
be done. Part of that is because I know that any idea I suggest to him is a bad
idea as far as he’s concerned.
But among the comments made yesterday when we were fighting was one about how much he’d enjoyed the peaches from the old peach tree, and that we should get rid of the tree that is there and put a peach tree in, so he could just walk out in the yard and pick one. So yesterday afternoon, I bought a peach tree for him, and a River Birch for me. It was to go out back as a replacement for the white birch we took out. During a break in our disagreement, I checked on line to see what I could learn about the “Cody Nigra” birch. They had said it would grow to forty feet. The computer said “forty to seventy feet” with a sixty-foot spread (for a yard that is basically thirty feet wide.) I went into a tail-spin of crisis as I settled in for bed an hour late. What to do about Dad? What to do about the tree? Whine, whine, whine.
This morning things were stable, sort of. Dad hasn’t gotten any less impossible, but he’s been quiet about it. I spent the morning at the nursery apologizing. It wasn’t any big deal to them, but it was to me. First, I decided to go with a semi-dwarf peach tree instead of the standard. Then I dealt with the bigger issue, the mammoth, probably beautiful birch clump that just wouldn’t work for my yard.
His first suggestion: crab apple. No. I’ve seen crab apples, they’re gnarly looking, gargoyle trees that drop inedible fruit everywhere. He said that those were the old school crab apples. He led me to an interesting bronzy tree with fruit that is maybe a quarter of an inch in diameter. The birds get them before they fall to the ground and even if they don’t, they’re small. I ended up buying one, plus five plants to tuck around their trunks, silver mound for the dark crab apple, and 3 coral bells of 2 varieties for the peach tree. One is Peach flambee.
I got them home by lunch time and got the planted by mid-afternoon. I even decided to put the crab apple where I’d planned to put the peach, so that I could see any birds that come to visit it better. So what does any of that have to do with eyes being tired and wondering when God was going to comfort?
Maybe the connection is only in my mind, but last night and to some extent this morning, my eyes were failing. I could not find a way forward. I was stuck in all the wrong attitudes. When I went to the nursery, I ran headfirst into an old friend – not a person, but a road sign. My responses to the idea of crab apples had been “No, no thanks, not interested.” And then God took me in a way I did not want to go. I know I get upset about the dumbest things, but I spent the night begging “Wisdom, direction, and attitude.” I didn’t add “and comfort,” but I should have, because that’s what I really needed. And God did it in an unexpected, but entirely predictable way – a way He’s used many times before, which is how I know that He’s in this summer of gardening that I had thought would be a summer without a garden, and I am comforted.
But among the comments made yesterday when we were fighting was one about how much he’d enjoyed the peaches from the old peach tree, and that we should get rid of the tree that is there and put a peach tree in, so he could just walk out in the yard and pick one. So yesterday afternoon, I bought a peach tree for him, and a River Birch for me. It was to go out back as a replacement for the white birch we took out. During a break in our disagreement, I checked on line to see what I could learn about the “Cody Nigra” birch. They had said it would grow to forty feet. The computer said “forty to seventy feet” with a sixty-foot spread (for a yard that is basically thirty feet wide.) I went into a tail-spin of crisis as I settled in for bed an hour late. What to do about Dad? What to do about the tree? Whine, whine, whine.
This morning things were stable, sort of. Dad hasn’t gotten any less impossible, but he’s been quiet about it. I spent the morning at the nursery apologizing. It wasn’t any big deal to them, but it was to me. First, I decided to go with a semi-dwarf peach tree instead of the standard. Then I dealt with the bigger issue, the mammoth, probably beautiful birch clump that just wouldn’t work for my yard.
His first suggestion: crab apple. No. I’ve seen crab apples, they’re gnarly looking, gargoyle trees that drop inedible fruit everywhere. He said that those were the old school crab apples. He led me to an interesting bronzy tree with fruit that is maybe a quarter of an inch in diameter. The birds get them before they fall to the ground and even if they don’t, they’re small. I ended up buying one, plus five plants to tuck around their trunks, silver mound for the dark crab apple, and 3 coral bells of 2 varieties for the peach tree. One is Peach flambee.
I got them home by lunch time and got the planted by mid-afternoon. I even decided to put the crab apple where I’d planned to put the peach, so that I could see any birds that come to visit it better. So what does any of that have to do with eyes being tired and wondering when God was going to comfort?
Maybe the connection is only in my mind, but last night and to some extent this morning, my eyes were failing. I could not find a way forward. I was stuck in all the wrong attitudes. When I went to the nursery, I ran headfirst into an old friend – not a person, but a road sign. My responses to the idea of crab apples had been “No, no thanks, not interested.” And then God took me in a way I did not want to go. I know I get upset about the dumbest things, but I spent the night begging “Wisdom, direction, and attitude.” I didn’t add “and comfort,” but I should have, because that’s what I really needed. And God did it in an unexpected, but entirely predictable way – a way He’s used many times before, which is how I know that He’s in this summer of gardening that I had thought would be a summer without a garden, and I am comforted.
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