Nancy was weeding in the vineyard

What a difference a little time can make in the development of any small farmstead; both for good or for bad.  Sometimes I feel like I am just spinning my wheels or running chest deep in molasses as I labor to build up the Timber Butte Homestead project but then I look back at where things were only a few years ago and I’m amazed at the progress and growth here. It’s true, we have worked had to do our part building with sweat and even sometimes a bit of blood, but the things that really show the most difference are the things human hands could never do.  I can’t help reflect on the words of the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Corinthians where he reminded the people of God’s miraculous work in their life when he said, “What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow”. For me it is a humble reminder that all of my hard work and effort to do any good thing in my life is totally and completely dependent on God’s miraculous intervention.

The other day I caught Nancy weeding on a rock terrace that had been planted with grapes three years ago. It was our first crack at planting grapes and although we had high expectations we knew little of what it meant to be vintners. After a short crash coarse from the nursery owner in Central Washington [See blog entry #160 – April 12, 2010] we did the best we could with the little information we had. In a way you might say Nancy planted and I watered, but only God could have made it grow; and he really did. The fact that our vines are now loaded down with heavy clusters of Cabernet Franc grapes to me is nothing short of a miracle; a miracle that could only be realized over the course of time.

Everywhere I look as I walk around our small homestead I see the same story over and over. I remember the hours of hard work, the seasons of dreaming of what could be, but in the end it was the faithfulness of God to make our human efforts into something of substance and beauty.