The Abundance of Summer
Walking down to the creek continues to be a continual, living, changing event as the days of spring are behind us and the first week of summer is underway. Creek levels continue to diminish day by day. I live with the wonder of when sufficient rain will come to replenish. Summer arrived with the vengeance this past week. Cool mornings are not so cool anymore and the sweltering afternoon heat inspires gratefulness for the indoors thanks to the modern invention of air-conditioning.
Storms passed through our area the last couple of nights, though the only evidence was the clouds forming at bedtime, along with distant murmurings of thunder and faint hints of lightning. While we continue to be blessed by heavy dew and a mist rising at the break of dawn, the surface of our ground begs for deliverance. June brings mowers to the fields for hay harvesting, and we were so blessed by our amazing neighbors who came to not only cut our thick grass, but to leave bales of hay for our sheep to eat this winter, a win-win.
Today the rain came. Not buckets, mind you, but slow rain for a time making for a lazy summer afternoon. As I walked to and fro on the front porch thanking the Lord for the moisture and asking for more, I felt a bit sorry for my other neighbor who I could see finishing up some hay baling in the distant field. Hopefully he got it all rolled up before the rain got it too wet.
We were blessed to get to pick blueberries this past weekend at a local farm we love to visit this time every year. Mr. Paul, the blueberry farmer, is always a welcome sight for visitors near and far. If I didn’t know better, I believe Paul enjoys the interaction with people more than any of the meager gains from the sale of berries. He has a happy soul, pleasant to be around, down to earth. We came home with a pretty decent haul of berries, a little blue in our teeth from sampling as we picked and a joyous feeling knowing we would have a supply for eating and freezing for the months ahead.
Another crop that is in ripe abundance are the wild cherries. We’ve had trouble with a few of the trees around our place being destroyed by goats and web worms, but we still have a good-sized tree in our yard that is teeming with an overflow of those purple little berries. About the size of a sweet pea, these little tart, bittersweet cherries come with a nickname – choke cherries. I’m not sure if the name derived from them being a choking hazard, given that their small size could easily go sailing directly to the windpipe, but I’d be inclined to think it may be more along the lines of their pungent taste. I believe these were meant to be sampled by humans and not necessarily consumed in volume. Perhaps God put them here solely for the feeding of the flocks, as in birds. The handful I gathered made a welcome snack for the chickens in the nearby chicken pen, one juicy bite for them, swallowed whole. Hope they didn’t choke!
God’s abundance is everywhere as He provides for His world. He created it that way, for people, animals, the insect world and all of the other living and breathing organisms we can’t even see with our eyes.
Rest in His abundance. He has plenty. His storehouse is full. He never runs out.