Man, I thought my midnight snacks with Satan were bad. But not nearly as bad as pulling weeds and harvesting once the sun comes over the tree line in June. So, the girls and I started a routine of getting up early on the weekends to beat the sun. Usually we must either take Blaze to work or pick him up, so that means that our day starts at 6am. It gives us plenty of time to do morning chores and water checks and still get in about 2 hours of garden time before it gets super-hot. 
It was during one of these morning sessions that I had a thought. As I was struggling with the hostile takeover of the Johnson grass and nutsedge in the okra row, I thought: is all this work worth it? Why is it that every year we work so hard for a garden that most of the time only produces half of what we plant? Then it occurred to me. I am only having this thought now because in the past I haven’t been as active in weeding and harvesting. I usually only help with the preserving part, which in the past hasn’t been much. But this year, God has blessed us beyond measure and I feel a certain duty to get out there to be a part of the success.
This is also a great time to spend visiting with the girls. We jam to Pandora and surprisingly we get a lot done. The trick we have found is to get up early enough before the sun comes over the tree line. Because once it is over our head, we get heat exhausted quick. And not as much work gets done. This past weekend, I was pulling nutsedge once again from the same spot I swear I cleaned out 2 weekends ago. And I had another thought, “Thank you Adam and Eve. Couldn’t just be happy walking through the Garden of Eden. Had to go an ruin in for us all.” Then the verses from Genesis came to mind:
“Cursed is the ground for your sake;
In toil you shall eat of it
All the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,
And you shall eat the herb of the field.”
That’s right. Right there in the middle of our garden, sweat running off my brow and into my eyes, I thought of the bible and the reason why we struggle. The original sin cursed us to have to work hard for our lives. So many of us right now are going through some rough storms. And we all get caught up in the “poor, poor, pitiful me” mentality. But I am challenging you this week to think about it differently. Work to find the rainbow.
Embrace the hard work and the struggle. Because here is the part that most people miss about the curse of Original Sin. Adam had it all. Everything was perfect. And it wasn’t good enough. It is human nature to get complacent with perfect. We get comfortable when everything is going great. We take for granted the gifts that are given to us and when the storm comes, it seems much worse. But I encourage you to welcome the tough times. Stop getting frustrated about hard labor. Enjoy your time in the garden. It will make the harvest much more precious. Be a product of your decision, not a product of your environment. Until next week…