Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.
Psalm 126 5-6
Well, crum. It was a loss. Not a big one. Just a disappointment.
Okay. More than one owie had gathered like a bunch of bullies on my playground. I still had a happy heart. No big deal.
Except it was. I struggled for days and couldn’t shrug off the pain of seeing what I’d hoped for slip away. I couldn’t convince myself it didn’t matter.
That’d been an unhealthy bio of mine for too long. Stuff and restuff. Hope the hurt disappeared out of sheer will power.
But when the hurt wouldn’t go away, I went to the Lord. Sure enough, He had an answer. It was about precious seed.
Precious seed to a farmer was the seed he planted when planting was costly. He could’ve ground it up and made bread for his hungry children. Instead he planted it. With tears. And with an eye toward the future.
The loss wasn’t theoretical. I couldn’t pretend that what I hoped and dreamed for hadn’t slipped away. I couldn’t confuse denial with faith. Faith acknowledged loss for what it was. A seed that was precious in God’s eyes.
He cared every time I’d been ripped off. He wept at the loss that tore at my gut. Disappointment wasn’t His tool to make me humble. He was my Friend.
I didn’t agree with the doctrine of “Well, it was God’s will.” Or, “You just never know about the will of God.” The will of God was and is good because He’s good. He valued the treasure of my expectations.
My loss, as a seed, carried life. His promise was that if I planted it, He’d tend it well. It would grow into a tree that carried life on every branch. Life so big it kept multiplying in more ways than ever looked possible in one tiny seed.
It was the seed I was tempted to grind up and eat. The one I didn’t realize was more precious to God than to me. If I’d trust Him that it mattered.
I might have felt a little plundered when I dropped that loss into the soil of His heart. But I had an eye to the future. The seed of loss planted in eternity wasn’t only noticed, it was cherished.
Its harvest will feed a lot of people. And turn grief into joy. Because of precious seed, those who hope in Him will never be disappointed or put to shame.
I Peter 2:6
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Lovely prose and poetry with great depth of meaning! We followers of Christ have met and know the Farmer of whom you write. And we have taken a swim in the waters of the cistern as well as the river of Living Water. (The latter is refreshing and invigorating, but we had to spend time in the cistern to know that truth!) Thank you, Laurel, for your commitment to sharing publicly from the depths of your beautiful heart! I have been richly rewarded by reading your thoughtful writing.