For all you 90s kids out there, do you remember the movie bugs life?
Personally, I don't too much except all the bugs talked and I think it rained in the movie and they all had to hide under flowers.
This past month my team and I were blessed with living on a farm in the middle of the jungle in Costa Rica. When I first found out about our placement, I was overjoyed. Here I am someone who loves being outdoors and working with plants and this is what my whole month was going to look like! It seemed like a dream come true.
As we began working, the first week we chopped down trees to create a larger walkway and one that would dry faster after the rains. I didn't really understand it, but I knew it was what my host wanted, so I did it.
The second week we were placed in the fields of the plantation weeding. I'm not talking about your tiny little weeds or dandelions that pop up in your home garden out small plot out back. I'm talking weeds higher than the plants, roots deep under other plants and prickly.
This week was by far one of the hardest for me. The sun, bugs, strong roots to pull out were insane. I didn't understand how there could be so many weeds! But, God used it just like He uses every situation. During on of our team times, my team leader spoke about how God had given him the words of: the roots we are pulling in the field are hard, long and take time to grow, just like the weeds in our hearts. Sometimes a weed is easy to pluck out because it hasn't been growing for very long, it's young. Others are harder, take more time and have deep roots and those are the ones we aren't always aware of, they can look just like the flowers.
Crazy right? Here we are weeding and we get this amazing analogy of the weeding we need to do in our hearts.
Throughout the rest of week 2, I realized that God placed me at this farm to see what it would be like to farm. I had always wondered if working on a farm could be something I would want to do at some point in my life, but the answer is no. I couldn't believe how God revealed this answer to me. I realized that all the work I was doing was simply out of honoring my host, sure it was fun at times, but the most important thing I realized is waking up every day for the rest of life and doing this, would not bring me joy. And that for me means that it would be work not life.
During week 3, we were asked to build a staircase in the middle of the jungle leading up to the sanctuary on the property. During these few days, I realized that God can do anything. He can give us enough man strength to lift large concrete blocks. He can give us people to come and show us how to build it. He can give us enough strength to get through the day to build steps.
Its amazing to see how God can make things happen that sometimes seem impossible.
Never forget how God has a plan through everything, even if in the moment it seems like you're standing in a field of weeds, there are flowers among you.
