who else will?

Wondering what you are looking at?  That's the game I play every time I look in my garden.   This is a corn stalk.   I planted 4 rows with 10 each.  I got one lone corn stalk.  I waited for the others to come poking up.  No joy.  Here is a little corn stalk trivia: One corn stalk is quite unsuccessful at pollinating itself & growing a full ear of corn.  It is basically a nutrient zapper with the potential to grow only few kernels on its own.

So why keep it in my garden?  Cause I'm relentlessly stubborn when it comes to looking out for the loner.   I'm developing an ridiculously strong emotional attachment to it. Why should this corn stalk get thrown to compost just because the others didn't bother to show up?  It's here doing a stand up job.

Look at it!  You go corn stalk!   You grow!

For the garden nerds out there I planted pumpkins & pole green beans to fill in the empty space.  Also in this pic you can also detect some serious grass growing (the lawn variety, not recreational to be clear).  I claim to be a gardener, but I don't claim to be a good one.

There is a way with my help that it this loner will develop full healthy ears of corn.  It is called hand pollination.  I'd explain the process but if you google it you'll understand it better.  I also might blush if I talk about the girl & boy parts of a corn stalk - and that one of them is called tassels.   Really I'll spare all of us. In short, the stalk has everything it needs do to what is required.  It isn't like it is defective, or incomplete.  It just needs intervention at key moments for it to thrive.

So profound thought today?  No.  Not really.

Just a super loud shout out to anyone who has weathered some tough storms on their own.  So to you single parent, foster child, abandoned spouse, neglected spouse, ignored kid, props to you.   You, the advocate for the underdog even though you'll get burned, the de-friended, the outcast, the fallen down but getting back up, the anxious/depressed, the weaker than ever yet still sober.  You go!  And finally you 'the virtuous' who thinks standing upright never mattered, that's right I'm blogging about YOU,  you especially...

...I see you treading over the wreckage that most would have died underneath.  You see, THAT MATTERS!

A lot of us occasionally find ourselves on that road where nobody friendly is traveling.  Perhaps for a few of us it is an all too familiar journey.  There is One walking with us.  One, who although unseen, intervenes at key moments & give us exactly what we need.

So, to you, today:  I'm sorry so you're lonely.   I hurt with you.

Mostly, I hope you know you're not incomplete or defective.  Consider this you're friendly reminder that you have everything it takes to stand...

Learn to do good

Seek justice

Help the oppressed

Defend the cause of orphans

Fight for the rights of widows

Isaiah 1:17

...especially when no one else does.


And in cheesy radio station style, I dedicate this song from Shane Harper to you.

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