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Hello, Friends:
Last night’s Dine on the Land was as bountiful as the 300 pounds of pumpkins and gourds that stretched down the long table. We had guests celebrating nuptials and an incredible chef, Beth Hackett of Lemon & Basil, trained in Northern Italy, who shared her heart through every story and reached a milestone of her own: feeding her largest table yet.
Throughout the evening, we heard a familiar promise: “We’ll be back to The Farm.”
“The Farm.” I’ve heard those words through the years, spoken with affection, familiarity, and sometimes criticism, too. Last night, hearing them again, I thought about how much those two words hold.
When we say “The Farm,” we’re naming a place—and years of our lives. Our dream. Our labor. The work that provides for our family and the days we spend building together. Relationships that lasted a season and others forged into bonds deeper than family. It finds its way into our conversations because so much of our life happens here. More than land or a business model, it’s the visible fruit of quiet work, tough decisions, and wholehearted commitment—of walking in faith through all that these years have held.
But “our dream” might suggest we knew exactly what we were building from the beginning.
We didn’t.
Sometimes a dream comes without a shape. Small desires. Passing thoughts. You act on what you have, trusting God with the specifics you cannot yet see. One step gives way to another. The story takes shape as you live it.
Locavore began that way. We didn’t have the complete picture. We had enough to begin, and then enough to take the next step.
It’s much like setting the long table. First, the pieces are carried out and assembled. Then come the chairs, the flowers, the glasses and plates. Menus. Napkins. Each addition a small act of preparation, making room for someone who has yet to arrive.
Then the people come.
You look back down the table, and what was furniture has become a feast.
So, there are things you can see: the table, the gardens, the people gathered. And things you cannot: the prayers, the sacrifices, the decisions made without certainty. The times we’ve had to begin again.
We’re all given different gifts, too. What one person feels compelled to build may never make sense to another. We can love each other without sharing the same assignment. And we can honor the work of someone’s hands without needing to make it our own.
What requires extraordinary focus may, for a season, require exactly that. What appears all-consuming from the outside doesn’t necessarily mean someone has misunderstood their assignment. We may be witnessing the effort it takes to establish something before we can see what it will become.
I consider this most when I think of my children—all very much a part of “The Farm.” They are learning as they watch. How to begin without certainty. How to persevere when the way is difficult. How to give something time, attention, and effort. How to work and trust at once.
They don’t have to inherit the same assignment to receive something lasting from it. They may build an entirely different life, carrying with them the courage to plant, the patience to tend, and the faith to begin before the whole story is known.
It’s easy to form an opinion about work we’ve never had to carry. And when someone else’s path looks different from what we imagined or wanted, perhaps that’s a moment to pause and examine our own hearts.
Have we left something unplanted because we feared making a mistake? Being misunderstood? Losing the comfort of what we know? Have we spent more time comparing what’s growing in someone else’s life than tending the seed entrusted to us?
Those are tender questions. We ask them of ourselves, too. Someone else’s fruit can remind us of a desire we’ve been afraid to act upon. Let it encourage us to put that seed in the ground—to begin, without knowing the whole story, and trust God with what grows.
We’ve each been given a plot to tend and talents to put to work, each contributing to something far greater than any of us can see from where we stand. We’re invited to be partners in the work as well as heirs of the promise. There is room to celebrate what’s growing in another’s life and still faithfully tend our own.
So, if you’re quietly tending something you believe God has given you to do, take courage. You don’t have to explain every part of it to everyone. Let the fruit offer encouragement to those who need it. Let someone find courage in watching you remain faithful.
Keep your eyes on what God has placed before you. Go forward, strong and courageous. Trust. Wait. Work. Love.
Until next time,
—Mrs. Farmer Jones
Psalm 90:17 (ESV)
“Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!”
Galatians 6:9 (ESV)
“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”
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