A "Little" Gardening Miracle of Healing

I took the entire day yesterday, aside from Daniel-care,  to garden. I sun-screened pretty successfully, and stayed busy from 11-5. I love being in the garden, I love the soil no matter how sweaty and "funky" I may get. It is life -affirming for me, it is therapeutic,  it is so satisfying, it is pure hard sweaty-working pleasure!!! There was a lot of border root-work to do before I could put my cucumbers in: my tiller just can't get that close to the fence so the little trowel and I spent about 1 1/2 hours prepping the cuke portions of the garden. Those borders were then as nicely composted and turned over as the tilled portions. !!! Two varieties of cukes went in, and along with them garlic, onions, cauliflower, broccoli and a bit more early cabbage and some late harvest cabbage. Marigolds will border the entire garden to help ward off  bugs.   The strawberry patch is in and it too is looking very promising. THIS garden is going to produce and provide for now, for later, for sharing with others: it is a SERIOUS garden!! When the "cold weather" early veggies are done, the peppers, tomatoes,  egg plant, beans, zucchini,  and squash will go in. Most of these are  currently (and  happily?)  sprouting in the indoor green houses and waiting their turns. Our other garden is the corn field which I've  bordered with  potatoes and carrots. The corn field was so nice and soft, full of great horse and goat compost, lots of great soil and sand so that prepping and planting the corn rows was an easy task.  (Thanks to Gideon who tilled for me, twice!) I was staying well hydrated,  still well sun-screened, took some Aleve for the stiffness in my hip and back, and was guarding my knees against a possible lock up even though I have not locked up either knee for over a year ( out in the goat nursery delivering that Topsy Turvy and the other 2/3 of those triplets) and was feeling really GREAT!!! Suddenly, as I started to move forward on my knees to advance my corn rows, I felt that oh-so-unwelcome and oh-so-familiar sensation of my left knee locking up! I tried to reverse my motion because sometimes that quickly unlocks the knee, but not today. I gingerly turned over so I was sitting instead on kneeling in the corn patch and I started to pray. I thanked God for the day, for the love of gardening that He has placed in my spirit, for the ability to produce food from our land, and for the strength He has given my body in spite of some of the "creaks" . I asked God to  please release my knee so that I could continue using the perfect conditions of the day to complete the gardening because ALL OF IT was unto Him.
 A bit of history:
God has released my knee numerous times  over  the 7 years it has had this issue, in answer to prayer, but some times He has let me stay locked for as long as 12 days, relying totally on  Him and moving along  on crutches. The last time I was locked for 12 days was right before Charlie came home from Iraq his last time. I locked up, and that knee did NOT release under any conditions. I did farm work on  my crutches that whole time. I was still doing a lot of the milking back then, which  did not do my opposite hip any favors but the work got done. My chiropractor was able to unlock it  once but it took him an hour of work!!!!! Some times God will give me some guidance as to what I need to do or how I need to move to cause the knee to unlock and it is not always the same method. THIS TIME, God moved in my mind that I needed to stretch out my leg as far as possible (  something I try to avoid because it  is PAINFUL!!) and to massage above my knee  working downward . I have never done this before or even tried that technique. I massaged as I continued to talk to my Lord. In about 20 seconds, I heard the oh-so-familiar and oh-so-WELCOME sound of a little "pop" and my knee released! As soon as it unlocks when it's just been a short lock-up, the pain is gone and I am totally free to move as I choose!!!! After a pretty lengthy praise time , I decided to finish my corn rows sitting rather than kneeling. This was a pretty good plan as Gideon assessed when he came to bring me a squirt bottle of cold water. He thought I'd chosen that position because it allowed me to use my body as a "Row spacer". I WAS, and I DID, but not until the locking and healing episode! Actually the sitting method was faster than the kneeling method because I could very easily furrow, plant and a cover two rows at once.


This garden will be particularly  special to me, this year especially the corn field. While I don't think that anyone "needs" a special place to pray, I suspect that at least this year, my corn field will be my frequent prayer place !!