Today as I was raking the leaves in the front of my house, my mind was on Yolanda and her struggles. I mentioned to a neighbor that she had a ‘real’ job and the response was an exasperated, “I hope it lasts.” The neighborhood is against her. They don’t want her around. Really, who would want a neighborhood prostitute? But if she moves on to another neighborhood, the problem is not really solved, is it?

I have a compost pile where I am piling my leaves. Trip after trip I go with buckets of leaves. I’m recycling them to use in my garden next spring. Mixed in with the leaves is trash. I have to pick the trash out since it will not decompose. Come spring, the trash will not nourish my garden.

I’m a big proponent of composting and recycling. Our family recycles all we can, bottles, cans, plastic, aluminum, batteries. We also use very few disposable items such as napkins, plates, etc. This is because I know that when the garbage truck hauls away my load of trash, the trash does not go away. It has a destination. It does not disappear after a year or two. It sits in another location, stinking. But we do get the trash out of our sight and forget about it, don’t we? Who wants a load of garbage in their yard or house?

Isn’t that what we want to do with people like Yolanda too? We want to get them out of our sight, out of our neighborhoods; but they don’t just go away. They still exist elsewhere. I don’t want Yolanda to disappear and be forgotten, to stink somewhere else. I want her to be recycled.

This is such a disposable society. Most items today are marketed for convenience. Use it once, throw it away. No clean up necessary. Interesting how this thinking permeates into every part of society, even to our value of individuals. We can make a difference, one by one. We can transform trash into treasure, but only if we don’t throw it away, only if we look at it another way and see value, see what it can become.

God is a God of recycling. He recycled me. He took what I once was, broken and useless, and made me into a vessel of beauty for His glory. I am daily amazed and humbled at how He has and continues to transform me. If He can do this for me, He can also do this for Yolanda. And because He did this for me, I am able to look at her and see what she could be, not what she is. With that hope, I am able to offer her love. With that love, the transformation can begin.

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I have a fresh pot of pansies on my front porch thanks to my husband's grandma. They are absolutely beautiful. I've been deadheading (pinching the fading blooms) them to keep the blooms coming and throwing the old blooms in my compost pile.

Why deadhead? To keep the plants flowering for as long as possible. This prevents the plant from wasting energy in producing seeds, yet.

Pansies are annuals. They germinate, grow, flower, seed and die in one growing season.

This past year has been a hard one for a friend of mine. She and her family helped to care for her father. And then his health failed. She continued to care for him as he continued to decline. He died, and she is now healing.

When I deadhead my pansies I think of her. She was a beautiful bloom that spent her energy and love as God directed her. After her father died, the bloom was spent. God pinched off the faded bloom.

Now I am watching her flower again. This time her bloom is more beautiful.

It is inevitable that we all seed and die.

Ecclesiastes 3:20 All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

As some blooms are more beautiful, I do believe some will seed more than others as well. I'm sure my friend is one of these fruitful plants.

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Okay, God has been telling me to write a book called Compost. The book will be looking at Creation and how God speaks to us through it. The title expresses how God can take the things we discard as useless, or pieces of our lives that we'd rather forget, and make these things, these pieces into rich, fertile ground. 

I've never been very "biologically minded," but it is time for me to study up. Most of my ideas come from gardening, cooking, adventures in the great outdoors, but if I knew more about the scientific processes involved with what I am doing, God would even moreso jump off the page.

I think I'll have the kids join me on this adventure. My husband IS an adventure and I know will be a great help and a sieve for this process.

LET THE ADVENTURE BEGIN!

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