This too shall pass....{Motivate Me Monday}

Just looking at this picture of green beans on the vine (pole beans, string beans) brings back so many memories. I can smell the leaves, the hot brown dirt, feel the scratchiness of the underside of the leaves, hear the snap sound, when you popped the beans off the stem with your thumb, even the taste of raw green beans.

For a few years, as a child we worked on, then owned, a small green bean farm in the Oregon countryside. We had 20 acres, with a big chunk of it covered by string beans. I understand now, a lot of the green bean crops are "bush" beans, small and low to the ground, harvested by machines.

But we had "pole" beans. Tall poles stretching down each row that my dad and brother pounded into the ground with a device. Then they would string wired down the rows, nailed to the top of the poles, and a heavy twin rope across the bottom, at the dirt line. Then the stringers, me included, came along with spools of string on metal holders and would loop string over the top wire, under the bottom wire, up, down, up down, in the hot sun. Racing to the end of the row. Racing to see how many spools you could empty in a day. The stringers were paid by the number of empty spools. I remember headaches from the up and down motion, and the hot sun.

Then, as the summer progressed and the bean vines grew, and the beans grew in size, we would pick the beans, much to my chagrin. I thought, as the farmer's daughter, I was going to get to sit on the end of the bean truck and punch tickets when the workers came to the scale to weigh their sacks. My mom had other ideas. She expected me to WORK, picking beans, earning school clothes money, even though it was still their money.

Metal buckets, cotton bean sacks, long rows and dusty feet and the smell, feel and yes even taste, of raw green beans. (Kind of sweet and juicy...an acquired taste.)

Another thing I remember from those summers picking green beans, is something my mom would say. I do not remember now the context, if it was in response to my whining over the length of my row, the heat of the day or the weight of my sack, or maybe her commenting on a larger spiritual perspective, but she would say. "This too shall pass...".

I remember that, many times that summer, This too shall pass....

Last night, I was reflecting on that. Following three days of headaches (this too shall pass), commiserating with a friend over some very hard circumstances and challenges with her children (this too shall pass), hearing of the death on a dear ones husband, and delighting in the antics of my children....I realized afresh.... it all passes.

It all has seasons... and the wonder and good and joy I experience in this moment will pass, the kids will grow, the stage will change, ....and the hard times, the trial, the sadness, the wait, it too will pass. A time for every season under heaven.

What is so awesome in all this, is it makes you reflect on the present moment, joyful or trying, and either savor the joy or endure the trial, but it also makes me dig deeper into the relationship with the One and Only, Jesus...and know...here, this relationship, this person...and me in relationship with Him is something that will NOT pass. IT will never pass. Permanent. Eternal.

And connected in that communication, relationship, constant conversation with Him, I get what I need to savor or endure, with all else that will pass.

So fast, blink blink, it moves on. God puts eternity into the hearts of man...we long for the permanence of goodness and the end of pain. This too shall pass....

But He never will, and because we believe in Him, we never will either.

That motivates me, to hang on, hold fast, hug longer, laugh deeper, love muchly.