Counting the Fruit

Even in the valley, there are mountaintop moments.

At the beginning of this year, I started writing in fine-point Sharpie, on a notepad with “Remember” letterpressed in deep blue script, my “wins” from the past month.

I write down every good thing I can think of – who we had over for dinner, what essay was published, where we went as a family, funny things the boys said. These lists are part gratitude, part goal progress, part weapon.

In a time when I was still reeling from broken friendships and lost community; when we were still searching for a new house while renovating, with difficulty, our old one; when I was feeling defeated and discouraged – these lists became ammunition against the lies that I didn’t have enough, that I wasn’t doing enough, that God wasn’t a good God.

The practice of counting the fruit (see: John 15:1-8) – noticing, acknowledging, remembering, paying attention to God’s faithfulness, His provision, the ways that He shows up – saved me from so much further grief. What started as a practice to combat the heaviness of defeat became a rallying cry to keep going on the path of abundance. 

This practice helped me find a way back to joy – not in the distant future, but in the here and now.

Because there are mountain top moments, even in the valley.

The fruit doesn’t have to be shiny or perfect.

Every year, in the fall, we go to Oak Glen as a family. It’s one of my favorite family traditions and one of the first things I wrote down on October’s win list. 

We head to Los Rios Rancho, where we line up for BBQ brisket sandwiches and watch them smoke the meat. We buy caramel apples and apple cider in heavy glass jugs and pie with cinnamon crumb topping. If Coffee Bean’s Winter Dream Tea Latte is “Christmas in a cup,” Oak Glen is the epitome of autumn – leaves and hay everywhere, brisk weather, apple everything.

The boys wanted to pick apples this year, so we pushed our City Select between the lines of cars and over the dirt mounds to the other side of the street where the apple orchards were. I don’t know why, but I’m always wearing the wrong shoes when we go. Hay kept getting stuck in my black leather sandals, so I would stop to shake out my shoes. And every few steps, our two-year old would bend down to examine an apple on the ground and bring it to his mouth, even when we told him those round, hollow marks marring the fruit were holes that the worms had dug.

He couldn’t reach the pretty, shiny fruit without help, so he did the best with where he could reach.

It was a 10k and not a marathon? Still a win. An essay and not a published book? Still a win. You haven’t arrived? Me either. Jess Connolly puts it this way: “The win is in using your gifts. The obedience of using your gifts is the abundance.”

So what if the fruit is not shiny or perfect? You don’t have to throw it away. There is a child out there, probably one of mine, who will pick it up off the ground, notice the worm holes, and bite into it anyway.

We don’t have to wait.

I have nearly a year’s worth of fruit that I’ve counted – from first steps, to finished blog posts, to moments of connection in date nights. I can look back and see my personal storehouse of encouragement. 

Did I execute my work perfectly? No. Did I push through discomfort? Did I get up early on days when I wanted to sleep in? Did I hit publish on things that I was afraid to put out into the world? Did I push through the fear to share part of my heart that connected with one other person? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Progress over perfect.

Every day, write down your moments of gratitude. And every week, count your fruit. You’ll be surprised what you come up with at the end of every month. God’s faithfulness is interwoven into everything. One day you will look back and see how much you’ve grown. Maybe one day you’ll look back and see that you have an abundance of fruit in overfilled buckets.

We don’t have to wait until the right season to count the fruit. Unlike picking apples, we can do this all year round.

In this spirit of Thanksgiving, let’s practice noticing, naming, and counting the fruit.

Reset 001: Let there be life.

This is true of every month: it’s a reset. Our budget resets, which is truly the most exciting part of the month for me. I bought all the books that have been sitting in my Amazon cart for weeks. I registered for a grounding retreat in October and signed up for a couple’s cooking class in June. I made restaurant reservations for our date nights, updated the month’s goals (read 5 books, run a half marathon distance, etc), and RSVP’d to the birthday parties. Come the first of the month, I am a machine.

Easter Sunday 2019.

I listened to The Enneagram Journey podcast recently where Suzanne Stabile interviews Annie Downs who is a 7 on the Enneagram. Annie talks about how she and her assistant (who is a 3 – my type) make a great pair because she wants to have fun and her assistant wants to have the MOST… of anything, so together they have the most fun. “This is me!” I told my husband. “I want the most. I want the best. I’m insatiable.”

It’s in my nature to push harder – for better, for more, for our biggest life. But at my core, I realize that I want is what we are all wired for: an abundant life. The abundance promised to us through and in Jesus.

In the same podcast episode, they talk briefly about a verse from the story of Hannah. I love the story of Hannah so much – she’s raw and real and desperate. Her sister wife tries to bring her down; her husband tries to placate her, and she manages to shake free from both of their expectations. She doesn’t minimize her own pain. In her heartbreak, she goes straight to God, and what she prays for is essentially: life. “And God began making the necessary arrangements in response to what she asked.” (MSG)

One of the posts Jess Connolly shared on Instagram recently was a story of how she was working out with her husband. She felt so defeated and discouraged, but she saw her husband working hard. She told him, “You’re killing it! You’re so strong!” She spoke life and encouragement and as a result, she herself experienced abundance.

There’s abundance in what we already have and in the power of our words – to articulate, to pray, to encourage, to speak life.

Easter has passed, but I’m still thinking about this benediction that Shauna Niequist wrote:

And now, my dear brothers and sisters,

as it was said in the very beginning,

let there be light.

And more than that, let there be life.

Let there be resurrection.

Let there be hallelujah.

Let there be dancing where there was once only mourning.

Let there be daylight where there was, for so long, only dark.

Let there be cool, clear water after a drought, nourishment after starvation, love after aching loneliness.

Resurrection after death,

spring after winter,

dawn after what seemed

an eternal midnight.

May we come to not just understand with our minds, but absorb into our very bones this beautiful, transformative pattern, like a drumbeat, like a song we’ve known all our lives—

life, death, rebirth.

life, death, rebirth.

life, death, rebirth.

May we believe in Christ’s resurrection so deeply that we begin to see the possibility of resurrection everywhere we look.

May our spiritual imaginations be renewed, and may we have the bravery to consider that things we have long pronounced dead for all time might yet come back to life—

possibly even our very own hearts

barely keeping time in our very own chests.

Let there be life.

Let there be life.

// Last week, I wrote about bringing back the blog. This post is part of a new blog series called RESET reflecting on growth and spirituality through new months and different seasons. If there is a topic that you want me to cover, email me at ruthie[at]no17blog[dot]com or leave a comment. I would love to hear from you!