A moment where the Father met me in my ignorance and showed me his love and clarity:
On Sunday, my team and I decided to quiet our minds and heal our souls with an hour long prayer session. We had done these before, we take an hour of our day and sit with the Father, it is always nothing short of ground-shaking and beautiful.
Our location of choice was an angelic little prayer garden in the center of the El Refugio property. It is a green lawn spiraled with a gentle creek leading to a little pond with goldfish and Waterlilies. The area is sprinkled with short lemon trees that have skinny trunks and shady tops.
I remember walking into the area and looking at the lemon trees and thinking how strange it was that there was no lemons in the tree, one wouldn’t even recognize that they were lemon trees.
Later in the prayer, I was sitting underneath the lemon tree as the sun was kissing the sky goodbye and golden rays started to pour through the dense bush of the lemon tree.
I closed my eyes and asked the Lord to tell me something, to show me something, for him to speak and me to listen. The only thought that kept repeating in my mind was the word; notice.
Notice.
Puzzled, I opened my eyes and began to do as instructed: notice. And as I looked up at the lemon tree, I was struck to find that the tree was filled with lemons. Some green, some yellow, some small, some large, and some fallen around me.
So many lemons in abundance! Why didn’t I see all these before?
I was reminded that He has the ability to open and close my eyes, the ability to change my perception of things. I didn’t notice all the fruit on the tree before he showed it to me.
How symbolic He is!
I realized I had been doing the same thing with my ministry and with the lemon tree.
I had allowed the redundancy of nailing wooden strips into a roof to cloud my vision of the fruit that was being brought out of my work.
Just because my mere human understanding didn’t see the beauty and sheer power of the little moments of my work, doesn’t mean that God wasn’t growing fruit through it. Fruit of connection, of understanding, of reconciliation and love.
I think we are all a little guilty of this, being blind to our beauty and power because it doesn’t fit our worldly perception of success.
When is the last time you took a break and took a second look at your lemon tree?
He is such a good Father and his abundance never fails, even when we don’t see it. I never want to forget that lemon tree and his delicate whisper of love to me.
Thank you for the reminder to notice, and understand that I have gifts to share, no matter how small they may seem to me.
Guilty as charged! Profound Elina, very profound…. Thank you so much for sharing. Love and miss you a bunch!
I’m just catching up on all your blog posts from the last month. Thank you for sharing. I admire your beautiful writing style. I love how you convey simple moments, feelings, sense of place, or people but then transform the story to find deeper meaning both for yourself and broader lessons for all of us. Thanks for being you.
Absolutely in awe of how well you see the Father working in everything, even something so simple as a lemon tree.