Well, well I'm sure those bushels of tomatoes thought they would get the best of me, but HA! HA! I have defeated them. Also, the corn, beets, carrots, cucumbers, buttercup and spaghetti squash and green beans.

The work involved in seeding, hoeing, weeding, watering, harvesting and canning is tremendous. But it is like everything else in life...you don't have to do it all today.

And that's the real lesson of most any task. Just do the next thing. You don't have to do 40 hours of work today, no matter what you may think.

And as I approach my sixties I've discovered something else: Even if you don't get it all done, it really won't matter that much.

There are so many more important things.

• A slow walk with a three-year-old on a unseasonably warm fall day.
• Watching a pair of Eastern bluebirds in the tree row with my grandson.
• Listening to Charlie tell me about the football game...or watching one with him on TV.
• Shouting encouragement to Laura as she pedals rapidly down the driveway.
• Sharing the week's activities with my husband after he's been gone for three days.
• Watching the twins grow and change and mature. Bold Anna, sweet Emma.
• Sunsets in the Red River Valley.
• Observing a full Harvest Moon come up over the horizon.
• Holding Lily after her nap while she slowly, leisurely awakens. 
• Talking with mom about the passing of summer and the approach of another winter...number 88 for her.
• Listening to Alex practice his piano.

And the list could go on for many pages. I'm trying very hard to be quiet and listen...for God's voice, to another's complaint, for an anxious tone in a friend's voice, to the gentle Holy Spirit as He continually prods me to be faithful and fearless.

I want to be busy with my own hands, a keeper of my own home and I want to mind my own business. My goal is to not bring shame on the Lord Jesus' Name. I am a slow learner. I have a stubborn heart. I am arrogant and insolent and often disrepectful.  But I want to be different. At least I want to want to be different. Ah, wretched woman that I am! Yet we can all rejoice in the fact that God gives us the measure of our days and He will shod our feet with adequate footwear for whatever journey He has for us.

It's a wonderful, freeing, assuring feeling to know that we dwell safely in the everlasting arms.