Changing Seasons.

I've been sitting back and pondering a lot of things lately.

I've also been in a season of a lot of major changes of seasons.

I have been raising babies for 25 years. I have been responsible for lives beyond my own. I have not always done what I would do now if I could go back, and that's requiring some soul healing that I am working on. I have spent so much of my life in high stress, fight or flight, overwhelming pressures, chaos and trauma. This has created an extreme inability to truly rest...ever.

I chalked this up to just how I was geared, how I was programmed, how God made me. I considered it an attribute, and I was proud to share how it came from my grandpa. Then things started changing. My baby is turning 18 and has started his senior year of high school, my beautiful daughter and best friend has moved into her first home a whole 4.1 miles from me and my oldest, the boy who made me a mama and taught me what pure love truly feels like, is preparing to head back to Alaska to build his life.

Talk about looking around and wondering what in the world am I supposed to be doing now! I am so proud of all of them. I do not wish to hold them back from moving forward in their own dreams and adventures simply to keep me 'busy'. But it makes it really hard to avoid dealing with the things I have been able to keep shoved in the back of the closet so to speak.

Part of what. is next is learning who I really am and I what God really wants for my life. A very big part of that.

The beginning of this year was a season of the Lord pulling me back from everything and everyone and giving me a season of quiet and separation. It's changed a lot for me. It's changed my focus. It's let me see what really is important to me.

If you've been with us for very long, you know that I am a dreamer and goal setter and a chaser of all the big things. I thrive on working and doing all the things and always trying to work harder and do more. No rest. That was a sign of laziness in my mind. I could conquer the world and I could do everything.

Abba showed me otherwise. He showed me the value in rest. He showed me the beauty in the small. He reminded me of why I fell in love with this farm the day I stepped foot on it for the first time. And He convicted my heart on why I was doing all the things I was trying to do.

I wasn't putting kingdom work first. I was chasing admiration and kudos. I wasn't building such a large scale production for the right reasons anymore; and it had taken away the joy and beauty that He had originally given my heart for the small. I was no longer doing this for the love of it. It was out of fear of failure and a desire to be admired for all my hard work. Fear and pride. Not of God if you were wondering. But mostly I was doing it to avoid what i haven't wanted to deal with. Healing is hard. And it means I have to let others in to the raw spots.

So in this season, I have stopped. I completely shut my garden down for the month of August. I canceled my poultry orders. I didn't breed my other gilt.

And I have started writing...what I pray becomes my first book...which will be dedicated to my momma.

May the soil be fertile, the harvest be bountiful and the farmer never grow weary.

Farmer Mandy