Sowing Seeds and Patiently Waiting

Hello Sweet Moms,

I’ve been thinking about sowing and reaping lately. Galatians 6:7 tells us that whatever we sow, we will reap. I wanted to encourage you in your sowing and your patience toward your reaping today.

I’ve been doing some sowing. I’m trying to grow some grass.

We’ve moved into a new house, and we have a tiny little area of perfectly formed, well tended grass in our front yard. It’s connected with our neighbor’s tiny little area of grass. The combined area of grass is so tiny, our neighbor mows and perfectly tends it all. That’s nice. 🙂

The back yard is a different story. It’s huge! And it’s apparent that no one has tended it at all for many years. Although our backyard is green right now with all the rain we normally have at this time of year, a closer examination shows that the green is almost entirely made up of weeds and moss. There’s been a wild and untended sowing going on back there, and we’re reaping what’s been sown—lots and lots of weeds!

I know some of you are or have been in the process of realizing that you are reaping some undesirable fruit in your family relationships. You’re coming to see the relational weeds that are choking out love, joy, and peace in your home. Perhaps you’ve seen a crop of anger and irritation or distance and independence growing in your family.

Since we’d like some nice grass back there, we got some weed and feed to spread around on the yard closest to the house. This process killed off the weeds. It put them down and stripped them off, so that many places in the yard became bare and empty. The bad weeds we had discovered were now gone. We stopped most of them, which set the stage for something better to replace them.

Many of you are exactly in this place in your family relationships. You’ve been putting off unloving ways, and addressing wrong attitudes, intentions and motivations. You’ve realized what you need to stop doing that was sowing the broken relationships and causing relational walls to form between your family members. Now you are able to recognize that something else must be sown. You know what not to do, but you’re not yet sure what to do instead.

Once our yard had all these blank spots, we sowed good grass seed, and now we’re waiting…… and waiting…… We’re patiently waiting to see the good fruit of our efforts. We’re waiting for the blank patches to be filled in with good grass. We saw some good fruit right away when we put down the weed and feed. The little bit of grass that was buried under the heaps and heaps of weeds began to show up and get greener and stronger.

You’ve probably experienced that too. When you stopped being angry and irritated or when you stopped the biggest of your particular unloving ways, you saw glimmers of change right away. Perhaps your children’s hearts softened just a bit, and relational tension lessened a bit. Perhaps your children have become a little more willing to receive affection, and they are smiling more, or acting like they would like to be with you a bit more. These are very encouraging signs that growth and change are under way.

But the fruit that will fill in all the gaps and make it all strong and healthy takes more time.

We’re having patience for the grass seeds we sowed to grow. I want to encourage you to have patience for your family’s process as well, as you continue to sow good in your families.

Yesterday we had the privilege of interviewing Nancy, Christi, and Michelle about their families’ growth processes in the most recent Bringing It Home seminar. We were talking about how they have come to know their children deeply.

What sweet fruit they are experiencing! They put off the bulk of their relational weeds 2-3 years ago, and they’ve been diligently and patiently sowing love and grace into their families, and the good fruit of deep loving relationships is beginning to blossom! I teared up with gratitude to the Lord as I listened to their precious testimonies, and thought about the sweet fruit I’m experiencing in my family too.

Thank You Lord for rescuing us from our own ways of sowing destruction in our relationships. Thank you for showing us how to sow rightly and blessing us with Your glorious love overflowing in our hearts between us and our children! Please continue to show these precious moms how to put off their old ways of sowing, and how to move forward with You, sowing Your kind of love in their families, and having patience as those seeds are growing toward loving much and loving well.

So grateful,

~ Barbie Poling