Hoeing

      I've been out hoeing on this unseasonably warm, mid March afternoon. Yes, you can take that both ways. A crude joke you say? An honest answer I give. Because if I'm not out doing one then I'm liable to be out doing the other. So goes the age-old battle of the spirit and the body. 

     Here in the foothills of North Carolina, the winter has been so mild that my onions, garlic, and collard greens have survived. Although from the store, I put on a pot of collards before I went out. There is a restaurant in the mountains that's known for them. A co-worker in the ministry my husband worked for took us there and had us over afterwards to watch "Shotgun Preacher." Not for the faint of heart, it's a true story of a man's conversion from an incarcerated criminal to a missionary to children of Africa. The same co-worker stayed with us a time or two when the weather was too bad to return home in the mountains from work here in the foothills. And same was the fellow who found my husband, Mike, in one of his lowest, perhaps the lowest, fits of despair and called for the help that put our family on the trajectory it's on now.  

    Collard greens: Hold the stem with one hand and strip the leaf off with the other and wash. When several are ready, put them on a cutting board and cut them vertically and horizontally. After the bunch is prepared, put them in a large pot with water halfway covering the greens. Add beef broth; chicken would suffice, but a hambone is best. I add garlic and onion powder. Of course, fresh is fine. Some kind of oil needs to be added. I use peanut. Most anything needs vinegar and sugar, and this is no exception. Dashes of hot sauce are a must, then salt toward the end of cooking them down for a couple of hours. 

    I also cooked red potatoes. I diced them up then shook them up in a mixture of steak seasoning, balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, and olive oil and baked them. I grabbed that idea when another coworker of  Mike's had us over for dinner at the house she bought after she lived with us for several months. She's since moved on but did innumerable thoughtful things for us while here. Most prominent in my mind are the times she took our younger children to have fun, once at a museum in the mountains, and then just our youngest daughter to a canvas painting party and to the mall. Oh, and I almost forgot the large sum of money she contributed when that lowest of all low moments came and Mike and I had to be separated. And my goodness, who can forget all the other donations that came in when Mike found out he qualified for Social Security Disability but had to wait several months for payments to commence. Never mind the volunteer my husband had befriended while on a deployment, never knowing that he had the financial capacity to carry us through five months of rental and utility payments. Why in the world do I doubt God's provision now?! 

     It looks like so far I'm kind of qualifying for 1 Timothy 5:10, "Well reported of for good works; if she have brought us children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints' feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, is she have diligently followed every good work." Unfortunately, I still have to read Hosea to see who I really am. 

    Tonight though, I shoot for Proverbs 31: 18-19, "She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth out by night. She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff." Three ladies from the church are lending their time one Saturday a month to those of us who are less skilled at sewing. I'm becoming a regular Hester Prynne as I pursue the inspiration I had while sitting in the basement doing homework for the college my husband insisted I finish in order to take care of myself upon his demise. 

(Originally written in 2023)