Reap and Glean

Milestone birthdays have a way of making us pause to take an aerial view of the journey and look back on the important. We tend to wonder what mattered most to make it matter at all.

A few weeks ago, I celebrated a “three score and ten plus” birthday.  What mattered most was seated around the table — my children and grands. I loved hearing each one share their favorite memory and the best advice handed down. Gleanings of lessons and advice hard learned.

Walk your own path  ~  Experience what you’ve learned  ~ Love God and your people. This is the priceless legacy we can leave from only us to them.

And many photos and writings were beautifully bound into a birthday-tribute book. The priceless legacy only they can leave to me. I have definitely reaped the rewards of momma and gramma-hood on every page.

But the greater joy has been to share with them what God has done in this long life.  Continually ~

Now more than ever, our kids need to know what we believe and why. We can’t waste God’s proven record of goodness on just us — this is why it’s  important to pass it down to our children and their children and their children. Mine know it’s found by prayer in the cornfield, scribed on sheaves of journals.

We will not hide them from their children but will declare to the next generation the praises of the Lord and His might and the wonders He has performed.  Joel 1:3

Through hard seasons of life, what has mattered and has kept me grateful is to reap and glean and collect the scattered holy crumbs placed along the way. It keeps us close and leads to home.  If we’re not gleaning much it’s because we haven’t stooped low enough to see what’s scattered. We need to have the eye of a practiced gleaner to notice what has been placed on our path.

Our world is quickly and radically changing with an urge to rewrite history including God’s. Be in the Bible to know it well to pass on to generations.  Be in your story to tell it well and hand down to your people. Thankfully, no one can edit your history.  It’s just the way it happened – authentic and raw.

Unless lessons in life influence us and others, they do us little good.  So dear friend, may your generations be the reapers and the gleaners.

Sharing your story with your children (or any young person in your sphere of influence) brings hope and inspiration.  See how it matters.