Working Our Row

This time of the year I always feel like I have to wrap up the year and be ready to unwrap the next year. Maybe it’s the way I mark time and set new goals, or a way of closing an old chapter and writing a new one.

Just a year ago at this time I had a funny inkling that there would be changes in 2014. I wasn’t quite sure what I was feeling. My first thought was that one of our loved ones might be taken from us. We are all getting up there you know. I was so sick with that virus during the whole month of January into February, I thought I might be the one.

There have been a lot of changes over the last twelve months. We changed churches, which broke our hearts and still hurts. I quit teaching Bible Studies, which I have done for over thirty years. I stepped down from the Vice Presidency in my writer’s group, which I had committed to for one year. I started taking Greek lessons, which I dearly love and can’t get enough of.

I saw three grandchildren graduate, took a trip to California for a month, sold my art studio, followed CSU Pueblo to a Championship game, and watched our grandson take home the Regional and State Championship for wrestling for Pagosa. I went with a friend to a National Writer’s Conference for my second novel, met editors and agents for a possible contract. The list goes on.

There were some things that seemed to click along as usual. Sunday night dinners with family, teaching watercolor lessons at Wyndham, writing articles for The Artist’s Lane Column and managing the Matter of Faith column. I also continue to take a weekly trip to Chimney Rock where I work on my writing and actually becoming a good writer.

The year started when I opened the SUN Newspaper and saw Karl sprawled across his desk. He had staged and was announcing his retirement. The year ended with the departure of two special people of the arts. In early spring we were called that our twenty-six year old nephew’s son had died because of drugs. In September my young fifty-six year old nephew, my writing buddy, was diagnosed with cancer. In all these things we were caught by surprise, and it has taken days and weeks to grab hold and make sense of all these changes.

A friend reminded me of a story I told her about my lifetime friend, Betty Lucero. When she was a little girl she picked cotton with her family in southern New Mexico. She said they told her to stay in her row and pick the cotton only from her row. As long as she was doing that she was gathering. If she reached over and picked from someone else’s row, she was scattering.

At the time my friend said she didn’t know her row. She didn’t even know she was to have a row. I told her I understood. I felt that way for years.

I’ve used this example many times. Over the years we have been busy living life and working with our hands. In a sense, we were placed in our row and picked cotton according to who we were and how we were designed.

I tried a lot of things and probably did a lot of scattering. I would reach over and pick from someone else’s row, thinking it would be fun to do, but found out later it wasn’t for me. I’d get my gunnysack full of cotton, but it didn’t necessarily count for my life. I learned from it and some way I was always brought back to my own row, gathered my own cotton, out of necessity or design.

The Lord has a way of making sense of our lives. It usually takes a lot of living to realize and recognize how He’s directed our steps, even though we’ve been making plans.

As I was thinking of this year’s changes, it sounds like we were all over the place, picking cotton from wherever and doing our own thing. But in it all we’ve stayed on our row, filled our sacks and kept our eyes on the goal. Our goal being, believing in the One who made us, believing that He’s accomplishing in us what He’s intended from us, and witnessing the Love of God through Jesus. He will be the one we will meet at the end of our row. I hope to hear, “You’ve put in a good day’s work and what you’ve done has counted for eternity.”

In 2014 some things came as blessings, other things came in hurtful and disturbing ways, but we understood that the Lord had given us grace to get through whatever was set before us. The sun has beat down on us fiercely at times, the rain has washed away our tears, and the row has seemed long, but somehow we always showed up for work the next day.

Final Brushstroke! We’ve embraced new opportunities and we’re excited for the un-lived possibilities of 2015. I believe through it all, we’ve gathered the cotton meant for us and stayed on our row. We’re learning to take life as it’s come. We wish for you a full life lived in 2015.