As I was growing up in the Greater Cleveland area I was
always delighted by the vast beauty of Lake Erie and I was fascinated by the beauty
of God’s creation of nature. My
grandmother had a rustic home with an immense amount of land with a beautiful
garden. She led a simple life and had no
running water in her home as she used a well and had an outhouse. When I visited her I was comfortable with the
simple life she lived. She was a solid Christian woman with a deep faith in
God. However, the one thing that I was
afraid of was going in the outhouse.
Many times the outhouse would have bugs in it. Spiders and bees permeate the outhouse and
within her garden was a plethora of praying mantis, spiders and flying
grasshoppers which I also feared.
I recall a time when a large spider was in the outhouse and
I became upset and here comes Grandma Sweet to silence my fear. As she picks up the spider and allowed it
crawl up her arm, she told me that God is our creator and that he made
everything. Even the bugs, and that bugs
had a role to play in the balance of nature.
Spiders ate aphids that were on her rosebushes. Praying mantis would devour larva of green
worms on her tomato plants and bees would pollinate her flower garden and all
of these things in nature where in rhythm with God’s creation of our world.
Grandma loved to read the bible. I recall her telling me over and over again
the story of creation that was in Genesis.
I was amazed with her ability to quote the bible and to hear her read
out loud from her King James Bible was fascinating. As she grew older she began to lose her eye sight
and moved in with my family and I began to read to her from her precious
bible on a daily basis and within my heart more seeds of faith were being
planted.
As I reflect on these memories I realized that she was
planting seeds of faith in my heart just like she planted the seeds in her
garden every year. Her influence in my
life led me to have a love of gardening and of the Bible. I now think of God as being our Master Gardener and I am his
assistant and his disciple as I share my faith and love of Jesus with all I
meet. It has been a long journey
influenced first by my Grandmother and other Christians in my life who also
shared their deep faith with me, mentoring and guiding me through the Holy
Spirit.
My love of the Bible led me to Guadalupe Bible College and
most recently I have become a certified teacher of the scripture. God called me to a ministry of teaching not
only the Bible but to also live the word of God in my daily life. What does God call you to be in his
presence? With prayerful discernment I found that I was
blessed with the ability to instill God’s word into the hearts of all people
that I meet. I became a prayer
warrior and began intercessory prayer with other Christians from all over the
world. God indeed has blessed me with a
gift that I feel compelled to share with others. Often people come to me for advice and I have
developed the gift of discernment and of knowledge and I inspire to share this
gift with others while planting seeds of faith in their lives just like my
Grandmother did for me.
When I think about my life I can envision my Grandma Sweet
in her favorite lavender dress and her white apron that matched her pure white
hair showing me God’s gift of nature and how people like you and I fear bugs
and think of them as pests to be avoided.
Perhaps you can envision these insects too, as
being a metaphor for the trials and tribulations in our lives that we are faced
with.
Have you ever had a time when you were met with a trial and
wanted to avoid it, to run away from it and forget to let go and let God? We have all been faced with that at some
point in our lives. It is during the
time of trials and tribulations that God remains in our presence at all
times. He will never forsake you for
with God all things are possible. Can
you picture in your mind that as you go through a trial that you become like
Christ and carry a cross just like he did?
Do you allow yourself to give it completely to God so that He can refine
you like pure silver?
As your sister in Christ I hope to plant some seeds for you and
to help you become like refined silver despite the hardships that you encounter. I like you, am a child of God who has faced
adversity at times and have become filled with fear. Remember the fear of spiders I had? That fear was quelled and within me a seed of
faith and hope was planted. May I plant
some seeds for you?
