Last weekend, my hubby, my mama, and I decided to take a look at some old scuppernong vines that my grandmother planted over fifty years ago. They were a complete overgrown mess. They hadn’t been touched or tended in at least twenty years. The original trellis was on the ground.

Trees had grown up around the trellis and the vines received very little sun. Briars had grown up into the vines along with both sweet gum and pine trees.

The entire situation looked irredeemable. Could there possibly be any life in the middle of that dead mess?

My Daddy, who was working on another project, looked over the fence at us and said, “Lois planted those. They were the sweetest, golden berries you ever tasted.”

Could my grandmother’s planting work still be viable after all these years of neglect?

We began to search for life among the rubble.

My hubby noticed right away that there were scuppernong vines climbing the surrounding trees. Vines have to come from a root. We started cutting and tossing.

To our happy surprise, when we cleared the debris from the top, we found many mother vines rooted deeply in the ground. When we snipped a little closer to the roots, we could see they were very much alive.

We marked them with pink flag tape and began cutting and tossing everything that hindered their growth. My hubby grabbed a chainsaw and took down some trees that were blocking the sun.

It was a lot of hard work as we searched, cut, raked, and hauled. We all had scratches from the briars, but in the end, we had the promise of a fruitful life restored.

The following day, Mama woke with the desire to check on the other vines my grandmother had planted. These were the bigger ones where we often found the most fruit when I was a kid. Again, we found the same situation. There were brambles, briars and trees, but when we cut and removed what wasn’t supposed to be there, we found plenty of living, rooted vines. Delighted, we tagged them as well.

We will soon put in new trellises with strong cables to support those old, but living vines. We will install some type of watering system and we will wait and hope.

As children of God, we are all in the planting business. Sometimes we get to see what we plant on this side of Eternity and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes what we plant lives long after we are gone, but, that is not for us to decide. All we can do, is plant as much as we can while we are here and trust God to do the rest.

Some old scuppernong vines reminded me. Perhaps you needed reminding too.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy

As I was driving to work yesterday, I was giving thanks for the rain. We have desperately needed it and although it was no fun to drive in, I was determined to be thankful. As I drove, I prayed for inspiration for a blog post.

I know that God is always at work in my life and I often get glimpses of His handiwork, both in big and small ways. However, sometimes He moves in ways that are very personal either to me or my family and I don’t feel free to share those stories with the world at large, so I prayed for what the Holy Spirit might want me to share.

I sat down at my desk at 7:30. At 7:46, I received a picture text from my Mama. It was the tiniest leaf on a stick, but this wasn’t a random stick.

A few weeks earlier, we decided to try to root a pear tree that my grandmother planted over fifty years ago. It’s still producing some fabulously sweet and juicy pears, but it’s very old and not very healthy. We don’t know how much longer we will have that tree that has such a special place in the hearts our family.

I did some research on how to successfully graft a pear and it’s apparently one of the more difficult trees to graft. We needed warming mats and domes and all types of implements that we didn’t have and we didn’t really have the time to get. The days were getting shorter and if we were going to try it, we needed to get it done.

We took eight cuttings and put them in red solo cups. Our domes were Ziploc bags. My Daddy, our farmer in residence, who can grow just about anything, directed us to put them in windows all over the house and he and Mama were in charge of keeping an eye on them.

A few weeks passed and nothing happened. They spritzed them with water a couple of times. Last weekend, just a few days ago, there was still no sign of life, se we continued to wait.

Then, yesterday morning, I prayed for inspiration and less than half an hour later, my Mama texted a picture of proof of life. A leaf had appeared. The cutting was alive.

I sat in my office grinning as my eyes filled with tears, overwhelmed with gratitude. I offered up a prayer of thanks both for the signs of new life and for a God who answers prayers in the most unexpected ways.

I’ve learned on this journey, that when we walk with God, we should always expect the unexpected. Sometimes I need reminding. Perhaps you needed reminding too.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 😊

A couple of weeks ago, I was driving into work. I was traveling on a different path than was normal for me because I had to pick up coffee boxes for visiting employers who were interviewing our students. I was tired. It had been a long week, but it was all good things. My school had hosted a career fair the day before and the interviews were spillover.

I was happy that things were back to normal for our students after two years of slogging through Covid regulations. They were getting in person career fairs and interviews, but it had kept me planning and moving non-stop and I was exhausted.

The road I was traveling on was busy, even at 7:00 in the morning. It wasn’t quite light outside and the cars out on the road raced from stop light to stop light, changing lanes to get around a bus or a slower vehicle.

I was thankful I didn’t travel this road everyday. There was way too much traffic for me. It was like a Frogger game playing out in real time.

As we approached what felt like the 100^th traffic light, there was only one car in front of me and I happily realized I was going to catch a green one.

Then I saw the girl on a scooter sailing across the crosswalk with her blond ponytail flying behind her obviously trying to beat the light and it immediately occurred to me that the car in front of me was not going to stop. She hit her and the girl flew off of her scooter onto the pavement.

I sat alone in my car, stunned and repeatedly uttered the only words that would come out, “My God, My God,” as tears filled my eyes.

Miraculously, she jumped right back up. A pedestrian came out of nowhere to assist. The driver who hit her got out to check on her, but she waved both of them away and walked off with her scooter.

The driver who hit her returned to her car. The light turned green again and we all drove away.

I was shaken to the core for the rest of the day. The girl on the scooter was someone’s beloved child and she had been spared. The woman who hit her had been spared of a lifetime of guilt if there had been a different outcome.

I had no words for the horror and despair I felt in that moment. I just called out to God and I’ve no doubt the Holy Spirit intervened.

Romans 8:26 tells us, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.”

Never before had that verse held more meaning for me.

I felt a deep reminder of the graciousness of God deep within my soul. That day, I saw Him intervene and for that I am so very thankful, but He intervenes for us constantly in ways we never see and perhaps the unseen intervention deserves even more thanks.

Sometimes I need reminding. Perhaps you do too.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂