Blueberry Patch Road

updated 5/6/13 – The Father – He’s put on my heart the need to open our heart homes to those outside our families, to pull them into our family – like He pulled us into His family. This road to the blueberry patch was not meant to be a selective road only for those we love in our immediate family – it was designed to for us to travel with a much larger family.

3 of 5 boys picked blueberries with me. Under duress, of course. 10 minutes out of town, down a gravel, winding road, beside a big creek bed that fills itself in its own seasons, to a hand-me-down blueberry patch, handed down from father to daughter. My crew was a mixture pickers, both eager and reluctant.

Blueberries are not high on their value list. Chocolate Popsicles would have been high on their picking list, if Chocolate Popsicles grew on bushes. I valued the fruit, recognizing that in the winter season, it would taste sweet to some of us, comfort and fill us with good things when nothing grew outside but Snow Trees.

14 lbs. we brought home. 14 lbs. to store away for later. The boys, they might not appreciate fruit picking, but it is good to learn how to find the ripe berries, to fill the bucket, to pay the price, whether paying in dollars or sweat, to be shown the road where the good fruit is found.

 “Go stand at the crossroads and look around. Ask for directions to the old road, The tried and true road. Then take it.” (Jeremiah 16:6a)

Right and wrong – it exists; its truth impacts; it needs to be taught, to ears willing and unwilling, even during berry picking.

“Discover the right route for your souls” (Jeremiah 16:6a)

 The boys, they didn’t want to go, they balked, they tried to dig in.

“But they said, ‘Nothing doing. We aren’t going that way.'”(Jeremiah 16:6b)

They tried to talk me out of berry picking. My experience allowed me to not back down.

For now, it is my job to show them the old roads, the tried and true road that leads to where the good fruit can be found, where things of God can be found, so that when they are in charge of the direction of their souls, when they wander away, they know the way back, that at the end of the windy, dirt road that seems out-of-the-way – is where the fruit that sustains is found.

It is a road they will come back to, when they’ve wandered away. They come back because they know it’s there – because someone cared enough to show them, despite the grousing, the bug bites, the sweat on a hot afternoon or the sand in the eyes in the early morning. Don’t just take your children or teens, though – take their friends, your friends, the lady sitting by herself a few pews ahead of you, the mom who seems alone – show others that road like the Blueberry Patch Road – that leads to Him.

Joining Nacole at Six in the Sticks where today “We “write out spirit” by practicing writing about the invisible using concrete words:” Roads – join us over there – bring a cup of coffee, sit with us – share:)

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