Tag Archives: faith

The Lemons and Me and This Season

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I found a patch of fireweed last week that was in full fuzz, and I couldn’t believe my eyes.

How are we here so quickly?

How are we six weeks out from winter now, with the Sockeye gone and the Coho here, and with those Silvers running, the feeling of frost each morning has rushed in too, and the need for a reset each night lingers?

Oh, it’s been a year. And it’s just August.

I think every single person close to me feels the same.

It’s been a year.

It was supposed to be the year when we all finally…FINALLY threw off the bad memories of the pandemic…when we all had a fresh start…when it was just going to be a page-turner and a chapter-changer.

But man, it’s been a year.

And this time of year, this particular season, it always has me yearning for a new planner.

A fresh start.

College classes start back up, a fresh new year begins in my job, my babies crank up their schooling…

It’s a natural start to new beginnings, and some years are happy and others are reflective…

but this one…this one has been a little sad.

Oh I still want a new planner. I’ve chosen my 2026 version, I’ve got the stickers ordered, I’ve got a PLAN for the planner.

That’s just because I’m looking to rein some things in, though.

Looking for some sense in the sadness…some methodical for the melancholy.

Because the older I get, the harder it comes, this changing-of-the-seasons.

And as I take stock in the state of things here in this bottom quarter of 2025, I feel the weight of it all.

This season that has a nation divided. Once again, here we are divided, this time uglier somehow.

This season that has me facing the rest of my life without my mama by my side.

This season that has our family walking the line of being empty-nesters while still having children living at home.

This season that has our farm downsizing as the kids grow up and out of their childhoods, and the animals begin to age out and leave us.

This season that has my body saying her child-bearing years are through, and it’s time to transition into menopause.

This season that is seeing friendships change and morph and fall off or grow deeper.

This season that has me wondering what I’m going to do with the remainder of the years that I have left on this earth.

This season…

Man, this season.

They don’t tell you when the babies are young that THIS season will be the hardest one yet.

That this season will grow you, flex you, bend you, break you, form you, mold you…in ways you never knew you’d be stretched or forced into before.

This season that has graves dug and cremains sitting on the bar in a fancy box, and thyroid medication-refill calls on speed dial, and the last year of high school plans saved in .pdf format after decades of making them.

That this season will have you on the brink of divorce one moment, to clinging in the next to your spouse like he’s the last person on the planet.

Hysterical and heartbreaking.

All at once.

That’s this season.

They don’t tell you that part.

They don’t tell you that your heart will break and you will be angry on a whim and that your bullshit threshold will be so thin that you can barely deal with people anymore.

They don’t tell you that you will feel all the years of your life that have passed and that you will just sit on your porch and ponder how many decades are to come and that you’ll reconsider all of your life’s decisions while holding so fast and tightly to all the ones you’ve made because they’ve all, every one, formed you into a person you wish you’d known when you were a younger woman.

They don’t tell you that the friendships you have will be lifelines or that your spouse who’s loved you almost two-thirds of your life will be the most cherished possession you’ve ever held, or that you’ll marvel when the adults who look like you and who were delivered out of your body will all-of-a-sudden become your closest confidants and that there is no greater joy than having them all together within the same walls you’ve all worn down together with dirt and blood and hearts and handprints.

This season.

They don’t tell you that you’ll care for aging parents and that once you finally, finally get used to that shock of an adjustment, you’ll be too soon saying goodbye and finding yourself an orphan even as you sit there mature and grown and feeling like a twelve-year-old searching.

They don’t tell you that your siblings, that bloodline, that will suddenly become something precious and opposite of what was once disregarded and taken for granted because it was something you were thrown into by chance.

They don’t tell you that friends won’t always be loyal and that what you thought was solid might just be flimsy, or that we live in a time when believing differently from someone might just be the reason they write you off as not-worthy.

They don’t tell you that others may just cling to you like their old age depends upon it, and that one day you’ll realize they’re right, and you’ll cling to them too and look forward to those grey years of laughing and love, and that you’ll hold onto them like a precious jewel because that’s what they are.

They don’t tell you that your faith will change.

That your friends will change.

That your family will change.

And that through it all, you’ll still be expected to be the same.

This season.

I sit on my porch and I work and I think and I ponder it all…

and sometimes I read my Bible, and I remember the fig tree and how it withered, and I cry because I don’t want to wither.

I don’t want to be without fruit.

I don’t want Him to look at me and say I’ve just spent all this time withering and have Him cast me away.

Because I’m not.

I’m not worthless.

I’m not withering.

I’m growing.

I’m budding.

I’m trying.

I’m striving for the Son and I’m trying to grow fruit, and just like my five lemon plants, those precious babies of mine forced to grow in this cold, cold land even though they’d much prefer the warm, tropical home we hijacked them from…

I reach.

My leaves curl, and sometimes they even die and fall off.

But I keep reaching for the Son just like they keep reaching for my windows, and slowly, ever slowly…they grow, and even though it’s not always seen until the sun shines again, I think maybe I am too.

That one, oh, he’s so crooked and curled and lopsided, and isn’t that just like me in this season?

LORD, isn’t that just like me?

Trying. Reaching. I hate this season, I can’t stand this climate, I yearn for the warmer times…

I long for when they were babies and I wish for when things weren’t so politically divisive, and I crave for times when they were simpler…

But I’m gonna keep growing through.

I’m gonna keep reaching.

I’m gonna keep stretching out my limbs and praising and looking for the sun in the dark, dark seasons…

When the hormones make it miserable, or when I’m stuck between peace and the plan, or when the bureauracy of the job hits hard, or when days change so fast I have to turn on a dime, or when the weight of the way forward needs more energy than what I have to bring, or when You may have to install a grow light to help me get through the days when all I see is the darkness…

I will keep growing.

I will remember grace. And mercy. And lessons.

The family I’ve borne and all the years we’ve been given.

The husband who has loved me faithfully and would give his breath to see me happy and safe.

The people who have given their lives so that I may have freedom.

The friendships that are threads in the quilt of my life.

I will remember goodness and love.

Like my lemons, I will reach through the chill of the changing of seasons and the darkness that lingers more and more each day.

I won’t succumb to the cold or the bleak or the uncertainty of what is to come.

I will grow.

I will remember there was One who gave up everything He had so that I might live this life He gave.

I will remember that every day here is a blessing and a gift.

I will remember that not everyone knows yet the freedom I have, the salvation that’s been laid out for all to find.

I will remember.

And on the days I forget, I will cling to the hope and the reminders that are there in the everyday blessings of this life…these ones given to me, those friends and family…those words in the ancient writings that continue to etch their truths into my heart.

I will remember.

And I will grow.

Standing in the Presence and…The Ugly Cry

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I’m not a big crier.

Unless you count that one time when I was about halfway through my first pregnancy and couldn’t sleep so I decided to stay up late and watch Beaches. You know, Bette Midler…Atlantic City…her best friend dies Beaches?

I found myself sitting in the dark in front of the TV that night with a roll of toilet paper next to me, most of it in torn-off clumps all around my fat lap, shocked and surprised by the body racking sobs that had overtaken me.

I’m not talking just a good cry here. I’m talking snot flowing, spit flying, teeth bared, I can’t breathe kinda sobs. I didn’t know what came over me! That had n-e-v-e-r happened before.

I was later informed by my bff, it’s what’s called…

…The Ugly Cry.

(For the record, there is a counterpart to The Ugly Cry called The Ugly Laugh. It looks much the same but there is usually table pounding involved.)



I don’t not-cry in attempts to be stoic, or strong, or studly, or because I hate crying. It’s none of those things. My heart isn’t hard and I’m touched deeply and moved by life’s tender moments and love to talk and write about them all openly and honestly. Without tears.

Unless…

…unless it’s one of those moments where I just know I’m standing in the presence of God.

Now, I could write pages on that one little sentence alone couldn’t I? How do you know when you’re standing in the presence of God? As a child of God, isn’t He always standing with you? Or for that matter, how can God stand anywhere?

All good questions, and we could talk long about them theologically, but I think you know what I mean.

Those times when it’s been ages since I’ve made a point to dig into the Word and I open it, determined to read today, but scared that He’ll have given up on my wandering heart. And there, right there on the page where I last left off, are words that speak so tender to my heart it could only be that the Author wrote them just that morning while I waited for the coffee to brew.

Or the day when I didn’t even realize I was needing some extra guidance from Him, but pulling out of the driveway that dark morning to go meet a little horse I suspected belonged on our farm, I was shocked to flip on the radio right in the middle of an hour-long interview with a woman who spoke about horses and Jesus and the power of one to bring us closer to the other and how these animals have a way of bringing out the best in us and bringing us closer to Him.meandcharlottespring

Or when I’m at church and the praise team starts a song my heart knows from childhood and it’s almost like I’m standing in the old, light blue chapel with Granny Cakes again, her loud, off-key voice belting out the song after hearing just the first note while her large-print hymnbook rests, unopened, on the pew next to her. She sang so much louder in church than she did at her kitchen sink. I’d wish she had one of those soft, soprano sing songy voices like other grandmothers had and it wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized, she held the tune for the whole group of fifteen. She knew all the songs and she sang them as loud as she could and she loved the Lord she sang her heart out to and she didn’t care what she sounded like and now, as a grown woman I’d give all the money I had to stand next to her in church again and hear her beautiful voice sing.

Those are the moments I’m talking about.

Those are the moments when tears will come.

Because even though He’s always there, it’s in those moments you know He’s there. It’s in those moments you feel He’s there. And it brings forth tears straight up out of your heart that you didn’t even know were there.

So yesterday when I didn’t want to go to church…when I wanted to let the blankets keep me warm and keep me wrapped and keep me isolated from the movements of the morning and the people of the day…

…doesn’t a soul just get tired sometimes? And doesn’t the road just seem long sometimes? And even when it seems like it should be so easy, can’t it get hard sometimes?…

…I went anyway.

Because my little people need me to.

Because my husband said we were.

Because even tired in the body and weak in the spirit and weary with the weather and burdened with the everydayness…

He says get up.

He says even when you’re tired, especially when you’re tired, when you seek me with all your heart, you WILL find me.

He says I am with you. And I will strengthen you.

When we want to isolate isn’t that when we need to stand in the presence the most?

So awkward and bumbling, I go, walking through the movements, bringing what I can to Him, my kids, my smile, my out of sorts, my weak.

The songs can sometimes be the same, those poems up there on the screen and the organ starts up and the preacher starts singing and then I’m ten again and Granny Cakes is in my ear except it’s not her, it’s our dear Mrs. K who teaches the babies like my Granny Cakes did and who loves Jesus with all her heart like my Granny Cakes did and who sings loud for Him just like my Granny Cakes did.

That sweet voice in my ear makes the tears come and my knees buckle and here out of the blue comes The Ugly Cry because how could I have almost missed this today?

My husband brings Kleenex and my boy holds his Mama’s hand strong and the tears just trickle on down as I was brought Nearer, Nearer to the cross where Thou hast died.

I stood in the presence and all I could do was cry.

He was with me.

And in that moment my faith grew a little stronger.

The deacon, that man who is a little like me and has tears when He stands in the presence, well he talks about the goodness of the Lord and brings us righteous Good News.

And the friends that were in a car wreck two days ago, cracking ribs and crunching their big truck right up there on a stretch of road known for killing people, they walk in and people in their seats cry quiet happy…we have them with us still.

And the preacher talks about hard things that make him want to cry but when you speak in front of a crowd, you have to work hard not to because up there it could go real quick to The Ugly Cry.

And I might’ve yearned for my blankets to keep me safe, but this…

…this is what really covers me. I needed to be here. These people need me. And I need them.

Even when it seems like I just want to stay home and give up the familiar, routine, every-week-for-years-now Sunday morning steps, God gave these people to me and they are the ones that help me walk toward the joy when I’m having a hard time finding it on my own.

I’ll stand in His presence and they’ll help hold me up and I’ll help hold them up and together, tears and mess and mistakes and all…

…we’ll grow a little stronger.images

My husband’s big strong arm. My boy’s getting-bigger strong hand. Mrs. K’s strong voice and stronger hugs. The strong laugh from across the room. The strong smiles of all those who might be a little like me today, feeling outside the circle, tired out with the time of year…the time of month…this time of life. When I’d rather stay home, let my blankets protect, let the familiar of my house keep my insecurities safe, they’ll come too and stand with me in His presence and I’ll stand with them and when we’re the weakest aren’t we really the strongest?

When we’re weak and weary and burdened and we come to Him, won’t He give us rest?

When I take His yoke and learn from Him, doesn’t He prove that He is gentle, and humble in heart?

Won’t I find rest for my soul?

He says it all right there in red in that eleventh chapter of Matthew’s book. He told us true and spoke it into the generations.

It’s easy. And it’s light.

When we stand together…

…no, sometimes we won’t want to…

When we stand with Him…

…yes, our knees might occasionally buckle …

While it might be hard…

…you’ll probably find yourself hit with The Ugly Cry once in a while…

Don’t we need to though?

Stand in the presence?

To sing. To pray. To learn. To lean. To grow.

To be weak.

Together.

Because when we’re weak…

…that’s when really…

…we’re strong.

“‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’. (Jesus)
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me…
For when I am weak, then I am strong.”(Paul)
2 Corinthians 12:9-10