Scattered Seeds..

Hello, my friends, old and new! I wish you greetings and blessings befitting the promises of the New Year ahead! I’m welcoming the new year with a blog make over, thanks to Mari LaVell and Free2Be blog designs.

A little about me, for those just tuning in.

By day, I’m a humble church secretary, Sunday School teacher, wife, and dog-mommy, striving to serve God with the gifts He’s given m

By night, I’m an undercover writer and aspiring graphic designer, striving to serve God with the gifts He’s given me.

The central theme of my life?

Striving to serve God. With the gift’s He’s given me.

One of the gifts I’ve found in my tool belt is writing. Although sometimes I wonder...Is anyone even reading what I write… and do they even care? And God faithfully reminds me--that’s not my concern.

I was praying over a seriously worrisome situation recently, and instead of telling me how to solve the problem and make everything better, God answered, “That’s not your job.”

Wait. What? I LOATHE that phrase/excuse. “Not my job.” Pshaw.

I heard it again: “That’s not your job. Worrying. Solving. Making it better. That’s MY job, and I’ll thank you kindly to let me take care of it. YOUR job, dear one: Feed yourself and feed others.”

God’s answer was extremely apropos for the moment. (But then, when is it not?) My worries were interfering with my attempts to study Sunday’s lesson for my 5th graders. When I accepted that He had a good point and breathed, “Ok, You’re right, God. That ISN’T my job, it’s yours,” I felt peace. Not closure, but assurance that closure would come…and it was not my job to bring it about. And I was more able to focus on what God wanted me to do—feed myself and feed others.
The order of those two commands wasn’t lost on me.

1. Feed myself. Pick up my Bible and spend some quality time with God. Drink from the well of Living Water, and feast on the Bread of Life. Commit to my spirit, bury in my heart, the truths God wants me to learn. “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on the very word of God.” 
2. Feed others. Pick up my pen and record the revelations and wonders my spiritual eyes have seen and my soul has experienced. Be ready to testify of His Love, His Life, and His Eternal Gift.

I love Jesus’ parables in Mark about the farmer sowing seeds. I’m a farmer’s daughter, so these stories are very visual for me. I know from experience that if you tiny scatter seeds on a windy day, you stand to lose control of where they are planted.

Some seeds are blown to the rocky ground outside the fence line and settle into the weedy loam.

Some are carried away on an updraft and land on the hard-packed, untilled threshold of the garden.

Some land in the fertile soil that has been prepared and purposed for planting.

But you know what? Deciding where those seeds land isn’t my job either. My job is to “feed myself and feed others”—to be Jesus’ parabolic “farmer” and scatter them. God’s job is to direct the wind and sow those seeds where He wills.

So let the wind blow.

“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.” 1 Corinthians 3:6

“For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field…” 1 Corinthians 3:9

Many many thanks to Marita Thelander (Mari LaVell) for her patience and blog-designing skills.


Catrina Bradley
"God rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes." Psalm 18:24 (Msg)