Wood-burned Signs and the Assurance of Provision

Like the patio table, this project was also used with salvaged wood pieces from a pallet and was inspired by a Pinterest repin.  I followed the directions from the diddle dumping blog ... except I wood-burned the letters instead of using paint.  Painting would have been faster and easier, but I liked the look of burned wood in crafts and I had extra time to burn (pun intended) while the hubs played intramural softball.

I wanted to put the signs above my planting station on the patio and was inspired by Genesis 8:22 ...

As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.

I was reacquainted with the verse while studying Ruth this summer.  This particular day that we studied Ruth 1:22 (yes, only one verse!) was packed with so many good nuggets of truth and encouragement that I can't begin to summarize without quoting the entire study.  So I'll only share the most meaningful...

Naomi had left Bethlehem years earlier with two sons and a husband and now was returning "empty" and bitter without her sons or her husband (1:20-21).  Naomi and her daughter-in-law Ruth were arriving in Bethlehem from years in Moab just as the barley harvest was beginning (1:22). (The land had been in a season of famine.) This was the first glimpse that maybe Naomi wasn't abandoned by the Almighty...maybe an "assurance of provision" after immense hardship...maybe her season of weeping, grieving, sadness was coming to an end...

...the concept of harvesting always applies, it's just a matter of what side of it you're on--sowing or reaping.  (And, by the way, both are good and necessary season of life.)...

Every time I read this passage (Ruth 1; Ps 126), I am reminded that it is not our weeping that brings the harvest but our sowing.  We can grieve and shed an ocean of tears, but no harvest will come unless we simultaneously cast our seed.  This is not easy, as difficult seasons generally do not motivate me yell, "Put me in, Coach!" But as we learned in last week's study of Ruth and Orpah, what we do while we're weeping makes the difference...

Could you use a glimpse of God breaking through the long barren land of a certain season?  Do not give up, keep sowing.  At just the right time the barley harvest will begin, and you'll just so happen to be arriving." (source)

So I made these signs to remind me to not grow weary (Gal 6:9) and that while I look forward to the harvest, sowing during seasons of hardship is just as important.

The planting station (notice the bat out of reach  from little hands)