Garden-planting time

In the summer time, when school was out, my mama would plant her own garden.
40x40. That's how big it was. She'd sprout her own seeds, set them on a table in front of our big window and let the sun shine work its magic.

You'd find us all out working in the mornings: laying straw, hoeing rows, weeding planters.
Most days the sun shone. And early on the mosquitoes hadn't come out yet.

It wouldn't be long and these days would be gone. Just like the days when I'd stack my school work up, or sit and listen to history. Times I thought those days would never be over.

Well, they are. And here I sit, wishing I would have loved the more. It never occurred to me I'd miss the simple days. The innocent ones.

Garden's grow slow when you watch them. And this year I am. It's slow, but they'll catch up when I'm not watching out. When life moves too fast for you to catch your breath and take a sip of air around you, that's when you've forgotten to watch it grow and let all seep into the hole of time.

The hard part's just living, and not wishing you could live somewhere else, be something else, do something else, just for a little while.

The hard part's sticking to the course you've acknowledged as the right one, and not backing down on the unbeaten road. Knowing you might stumble, but keeping at it anyway.

The hard part is trying to get back up. It's hard. Very hard. To unbelieve something you've fooled yourself, unawares, into believing. To uninfluence yourself and build up your guard again, against your own heart.

'Cause when you've done it, it feels like you've lost your strength, and God bends you to your knees to beg for His strength again.