Fertilizer Seasons

My daughter’s friendship situation in high school was, if I may be blunt, a bunch of bull. She went through the ringer with some very unkind girls. But when she went to college, boy did things change. She started making friends left and right.

Reflecting on both periods of time, I said, “Darlin’ child, on the friend front, your high school years were full of crap. At college, you’re reaping the rewards of a harvest well earned.”

And then, my husband quipped, “Harvests do better with a lot of fertilizer, and you’ve stored up some fertilizer that you’re now putting to good use.”

I haven’t forgotten about that statement because it’s true: In God’s economy, nothing is waste or wasted. And in the natural world, a good deal of fertilizer helps good things grow.

In not-too-poetic terms, gross stuff helps grow essential stuff.

This certainly applies to the friendship front. If you have your own years of accumulating “fertilizer,” take heart: your harvest will come eventually. Yesterday’s hardships from trying to make friends feed our present-day and future friendships.

As you endure your own season of accumulating well-aged fertilizer, I pray God gives you His Spirit of wisdom in revelation regarding your own friendship harvest. And as you and I work to refine our own quirks and behaviors so they don’t contribute to other people’s fertilizer, I pray He gives us wisdom in revelation that helps us grow in social graces that bless rather than blight others. As with each of us, God is renewing your strength and vision day by day, season by season. He is not idle but actively moving in your life so that you may know Him better (Ephesians 1:17). Part of that is showing you and me how friendship hardships that seemed so unnecessary before can grow into future blessings rising from the mystery.

God doesn’t waste one drop of our difficulties. Every moment of every struggle will be straightened and stitched into a beautiful tapestry of wholeness. Then you can take what you’ve learned and walk alongside other women in their own friendship struggles.

Pray:

God, please show me where you want to use my fertilizer seasons to grow something beautiful. I trust that you will not waste anything, and I’ll see a beautiful harvest of friendship.