Luke 13:6–9 (NIV)
Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any.
So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’
“‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it.
If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”
Reflection
Some days, I feel exactly like that fig tree—standing in the middle of life, trying my best, but still wondering if I’m producing anything at all. Not the perfect, fruitful tree everyone expects… just the one hoping nobody notices how bare the branches feel.
And honestly? There are moments I feel inadequate in almost every role I hold:
– As a wife, loving deeply but sometimes running on fumes
– As a mother, praying between grown-child crises, hoping I’m guiding well
– As an employee, juggling tasks with a superhero cape that keeps slipping
– As a minister, pouring out even when my cup feels half-empty
– As a singer, trying to bless God while my voice sometimes protests
– As a writer, full of stories but occasionally stuck between heart and keyboard
And in the middle of all that, I slip into development mode: fix myself, improve myself, upgrade myself—as if I’m a project on a deadline.
But Jesus tells a different story.
In the parable, the owner looks at the tree and says, “Cut it down.” But the Gardener—who knows how roots really work—steps between judgment and mercy and says:
“Give her time. Give her grace. Let Me work with her.”
He doesn’t ask the tree to try harder. He doesn’t shame it. Instead He says:
“Let Me dig around her.”
“Let Me nourish her.”
“Let Me tend to the parts nobody sees.”
While I’m busy trying to perfect myself, Jesus reminds me:
“Growth is My job. Staying connected is yours.”
He is not rushing me. He is not disappointed in me. He is not walking away from me.
He is kneeling in the soil of my life saying:
“Give her another year. I know what she needs. Let Me grow her in My timing.”
And that truth sets my soul at rest.
Prayer
Dear Lord,
Thank You for being the Gardener who refuses to give up on me. Forgive me for the times I rush myself, judge myself, or declare myself fruitless. Teach me to rest in You, to stay rooted in You, and to trust Your timing over my own. Dig around me, nourish me, and grow me in the way only You can. And when I feel inadequate, remind me that Your grace is still at work beneath the surface.
With love,
Chelle
Category: money
Day 3. Webs, Spiders and Other Creepy Things
Today I did a thing I am quite proud of. I pushed past my fear of webs and spiders and other creepy things and spent an exhausting amount of hours cleaning and tossing out stuff in the garage.
Tired,sore, itchy and most likely washing my hair for several days, but it feels good to decide what goes, what stays, and what’s going to be sold to the highest bidder.
This day was this kind of work…. in the natural and in my spirit. Going beyond the fears, doubts, and physical limitations to see what I am really made of. Decluttering and releasing that which no longer serves a purpose to me. Finding strength and courage to let go.
The closets and things hiding in the shadows are next. 22 years of junk and 56 years of secrets and faith killers being exposed.
Finally screaming I AM WORTHY
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I know there are bigger things to worry about in this world, but every year since my grandma died, I have been her version of the Christmas Mother. With all that has been going on and recuperating, I had to scale way back this year. I feel like a lost puppy without being in the thick of it.What was irritating me most is having an assembled tree without a single ornament on it. I had decided that this year, the theme would be prayer, but I never got the ornaments made I intended. So I am looking at this unadorned evergreen and hearing the message loud and clear……..perpetual unpretentious prayer from the heart is the best Christmas gift.So as I order up some store bought ornaments to go with the one handmade one I’m attempting to finish by then, I will pray for family and friends with the lifting of each one. Send me your prayer requests so that I can put yours in place.
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Entertained By Angels
My God, My God.
After my very good doctor’s appt today, my husband & I went to a restaurant a bit out of our way, but I insisted because I wanted to see my fav waitress, Theresa Ann Hatch . Long story short, a couple from Columbus, Ohio were also drawn to detour and find Satterwhites. After they left, Theresa tells us that the gentleman said God told him to pay for our meal. When I ran out to find them in the parking lot he says she wasn’t supposed to tell me but since I was there……..he read all the mail in my heart from all the letters I have ever written to God. Had me crying in the parking lot. Talked my hearts desires and my need for rest and that God doesn’t expect a minster like me to try to rescue the whole world but do my part. He also said I need to get in my head how much God loves me and not just in a generic sense.
He never gave me a chance to say a word, so everything he said was 100% from God. They held on to me, and it brought a peace that I can not describe. Oddly my eyes were still dilated from my retina appt so I couldn’t get a grasp of what they looked like, just that they had a glow about them that wasn’t hurting my eyes like the sun does when your eyes are dilated. I don’t know if God will allow me to see them again in this life as they were just passing through, but My God, My God, I believe I entertained angels.
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Smiles And Tears Cake
When a situation births the twins of joy and pain, it makes me feel schizophrenic.
My go-to response is to clean the kitchen and bake something new. Mess up what I just fixed with goodies I will never eat. Provide delight to others while I’m screaming inside. Ministering sweets to others when I need a taste for myself.
My current loss is another’s gain. I feel quite selfish in wanting to hold on to someone who I am happy is finally free.
I know. I know. It is not the end of all things. We will meet again, at some junction, some highway, under some rainbow.
She liked to say I put my “foot in that!”.
Naw gurl! It’s smiles and tears.
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Heart Hungry
I was out in the Carytown area yesterday. One of the worst places to be when you know that you can’t have solid food for 36 hours before a medical test. But I was looking to pick up my last meal for a few days and wanted something special.
However my husband and I ran across homeless people near the trash cans of so many of these trendy restaurants . I began to weep when I saw them because this is America….the land of excess…and yet so many are living like this. Carytown flows with cash. Most times I can afford nothing there. It was heartbreaking seeing people of all ages and colors hoping for some wasteful person’s scraps.
This situation is only exasperated by Covid closing so many churches and shelter resources. It is also created by a ” I got mine. You get yours” attitude so many financially secure people have.
We don’t have a lot in our house but we are blessed. My husband and pooled what we had and bought as many sandwiches and fries we could handle. Thank you to the Carytown McDonald’s for asking what we were doing and donating a matching amount of bottled water.
I was shook so much by one married couple out on the corner with what seemed to be all of their possessions huddled against the cold. I freaked when I noticed a baby stroller but was relieved to find it was a very old dog wrapped in a blanket. I’m not a pet lover but I had to feed it. The poor thing was so tired looking he barely lifted his head at the smell of food. The young husband was so grateful he started to cry.
In the age of Covid you can’t touch, get too close or even see smiles anymore. But I was struck by all the emotions in his eyes and they spoke the volume of the problems in the human experience. His eyes were a golden brown color that I have never seen before and pierced right through me as a reminder to be grateful in all things. Even under the dirt and behind a make shift mask his face glowed.
I also noticed that they still wore their wedding bands. Tells me that they have not been out there too long. Most folks would have pawned for a room. Also tells me that they are determined to stay a family.
My husband and I made one last pass thru the street to make sure we hadn’t missed anybody we saw. Thought I had gone crazy because the couple and that old dog were suddenly gone. No way they could have moved that fast. We had just circled the block.
All I can do is wonder if we had been visited and tested. I pray we passed. My own food is still in the fridge. No need for it. My heart filled me.
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Why Me
I suppose I will answer in fuller detail later. But I was asked earlier about my “why me?” moments. My answer was this: of course I have them. But I try simply to avoid them because then I find my spiritual self asking my carnal self “why not me? ” to which both sides have lofty answers. And then the fight ends with the question to which no pure soul can answer with a holy heart “Who would I rather God had picked instead?”
Cancer sucked. Surgery sucked. Chemo really sucked. And I suppose my upcoming radiation will too. But no where do I believe I have a target on my back. My name is not Job or Job-ette. We live in a world where stuff happens even to those who love God and are loved by God. The magnificent difference is I am never alone. I would have lost my mind without His ever presence.
Would I have chosen this path? A resounding NOPE. But nor would I choose to hand it off to someone else. There is none else worthy to walk in my shoes nor is none else deserving to have the pain I bear walking in my shoes.
I fight on believing that purpose and goodness shall come out of this. That nothing I have experienced, bad or good, is in vain.
I shall not waste time wondering “why” on many days. I would rather spend the many days wondering how to powerfully live.
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The Hair Taxi
Star date, January 24, 2019.
Forever deemed the day of the “Great Fall Out”.
In the grand scheme of things, there was nothing nuclear about it. The world has not ended. But it certainly felt like I had been hit by a bomb.
I was prepared and unready all at the same time. My infusion nurse had warned me. My oncologist had warned me. Every book and every fellow survivor had warned me.
It had even warned me. In the three days prior, and without further description, everything below my neck had made a steady march toward the shower drain. Adding insult to injury by forcing me to repeatedly clean the “shower shroom” I had purchased in case of such of an event.
I even had a beautician and a back-up beautician on stand by. I was going to take control of this. I was not going to let it beat me. I was going to be brave and rid myself of the trauma. Was even going to go live on social media with it. I was going to declare that “Pink Warriors” rule. A group of us girls were going to fight back.
But this was not to be the case. Whether this was bad luck or whether it was divine providence, I don’t know. Every single lady involved but me was busy that Friday night. My power moment was quickly becoming a whimper.
I was desperate. I was edgy, but I was sure I could make it to Saturday morning. “Just go to bed”, I told myself, “It will be okay”.
Taxotere aka “The Hair Taxi” said ” Yeah, Right!”
Ever had a sunburn on your head? That’s what it felt like when the “glow bugs” came to fight. Woke me up at 3 a.m. with a jolt. Instantly, my hand rises for my head. Ascends empty and descends full of what used to be.
My face was wet with mourning before I even picked up the comb and started to loosening the plaits I had been wearing to lessen impact. But nothing could save me from the pain in my scalp nor the pain in my spirit as they began to fall on their own. For each one I pulled, another came with it.
Exhausted from trying to keep up, I woke my husband up at 4 a.m . I sat between his knees on the floor to let him finish the job. Towel around my shoulders and bag in hand to protect the carpet.
We turned on the comedy channel, though neither of us really felt like laughing. I was attempting to drown out the screaming that was going on in and on my head.
After nearly two straight hours of digging, pulling and stopping to cool my scalp with a towel, I was left with a gallon sized freezer bag of what used to be black (and grey) natural curls and braids.
My “Whoopie Goldberg” pigtails use to extend just about my shoulders. Very few in my professional life had seen them. I kept them neatly tucked under a curly wig of about the same length during daylight hours. They were my little secret that got exposed the minute I hit my door frame each night and all weekend long. Only my closest family and friends had seen them. Oh, and occasionally, the mail man who I felt no need to be fake with.
My “Whoopies” were my guilty little pleasures. My real me. My freedom. And now I was carefully gathering them for a funeral procession in a zip lock bag coffin. A sobbing march to the super can outside so I would not be tempted to keep them.
SIDE NOTE: It is just hair. I know that. But it was mine. The next person with a full head of hair who has not experienced chemo or alopecia…. and says that I should just get over it….. best believe they should stand at least my arm span away for a week or more.
In rotation, for 50 years. Together, thru a gazillion style and color changes. Fads and bad hair cuts. Extensions and protective wigs. Personality, definition, style! Alter ego! It was mine and I need at least 24 hours to pout and eat some of the crap I have been avoiding. I will smile again Sunday.
As I ran my hand again through the remnant still attached to me, the physical pain was very much there. I would spend most of the morning with cold towels on my head trying to minimize the burn. I tried to talk to God to do the same for my soul. I have come to the conclusion that I was not allowed to beat this part of the race because He needed me to “feel” this for somebody else. Testimonies are never for ourselves, but for those in ear shot or in the reading.
I will be real with you. This day, though horrible for a few hours, was truly never really about hair. It was about the feeling of breast cancer robbing me of something else.
Please, don’t read pity …. read mad as spit.
I know what millions of men and women feel as surgery changes your body. Scars criss-cross in vain places. Things taken off and things inserted in. Skin texture changes and color changes. Ruined taste buds. Weight gain and weight loss. Steroid hots and steroids cold. Steroid cries and steroids mean. Just this week, I met a lady who lost her hearing to chemo. Another of whom it caused heart problems.
Let’s not forget people talking to your chest like your tumor will glow and reveal itself or your missing boob will reappear before their eyes. Or the dumb things that are said like “my 3rd cousin didn’t make it”, “where’s your faith” or “it’s just hair”.
I got myself together Saturday morning. Since the beauticians were still not available, I grabbed my daughter and headed straight to the neighborhood barbershop where I take my boys to. I knew “Pop Trim” as he is affectionately called would be opened early. I needed to get this over with quickly. I called ahead and was greeted with a ” I got you girl”.
The shop is normally full of noise and a lot of trash talking guys. I am one of only a few ladies that can hang in such a place…. well trained by my large family of uncles and male cousins. But today I was first in the door and it was almost silent.
Pop, a veteran of the Armed Forces and a retired firefighter with strong hands, handled me like he was cradling a newborn baby. His quiet demeanor was almost unsettling as I had never seen it before… and probably never will again.
Scissors and clippers flying around my head, he took breaks in between when the sobs came. He never acknowledge them. Didn’t hand me a tissue. He just let me have my tears. I thought I wanted an army of women with me to cheer me on. But the healing touch of this stately rescuer who knew how to properly war was more than enough.
My eyes flowed upward toward the ceiling seeking my true Rescuer. I know He is with me and will never leave me comfortless.
And then into the eyes of my daughter who was filming my buzz cut. I pray for the day that breast cancer goes playing in traffic. I want my girly girl to never know what this feel like.
Yes. It is just hair……I know……. But it was mine.
With Bald Love,
Michelle
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WHERE ARE YOU?
I would have fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. – Psalms 27:13
1/7/18. I will always remember that date like it was a star date in the Star Trek Captain’s Log.
Started off as a normal Sunday set-up. I had just cleaned up the area around the sound booth and was adjusting everything to get ready for that morning’s praise and worship. Service was a running a few minutes behind, but we were still fresh off our morning’s high of pre-worship hour prayers.
Then it happened. My phone rang. I almost never answer it during service. In fact, two minutes before I had nudged one of our teenagers about having their phone in use during Sunday school.
But I recognized the number. That familiar 264 exchange that every “kidney” family in my region of Virginia recognizes.
Breathless, full of anticipation, and almost terrified, palms and face sweating in two seconds flat, I answered to the coordinators voice…. “WHERE ARE YOU?”
You see, protocol call dictates that when the organ sharing center receives a possible match, you must call the prospective recipient to make sure they are within four hours of their chosen transplant hospital. Once whereabouts are confirmed, they then say they will call you back and promptly hang up.
Yes, you read that right. In one of the shakiest moments of your life, they hang up with a promise to call you back within an hour…..or so…. If it is a good match.
I was still in the sound booth. My son was sitting on his favored spot approximately 6 rows in front of me. I didn’t know whether to tell him or not that his life was about to change because we had been disappointed by these phone calls twice before.
I simply texted him “be ready to go when I tap you.”
His answer to me was a simple “Ok”. Never even asked why. Just trusted that if I said go, we go.
For me, on the other hand, this would be the longest 59 minutes of my entire life. Seems like time and space stood still. Room temp was suddenly too warm for me and the air too stale. I can’t remember if I set the microphones correctly… pastor could have been screaming and I would not have heard him. The praise and worship team was faithfully belting out songs that my impatient ears could not discern. All I could distinguish was the rhythm of the beating drum that was now matching my racing heartbeat.
Just about 45 minutes into the process, I had to set a course correct. Not on the sound board, but in myself. I had to steady myself on a bumpy ride by apologizing to God, to Jesus, to Holy Spirit. I had become so consumed with that phone call I forgot to continue in personal worship and attention to the Word being brought forth. I was esteeming what I wanted from God…more than I was esteeming God.
It was as if in that moment, Holy Spirit was ringing within my heart and asking “WHERE ARE YOU?”
I steadied myself. I readied myself. I began to worship through tears of pending decision, proclaiming that as much as I wanted this gift to release my son from 5 years of agonizing dialysis treatments, that I wanted the Presence of the Lord even more.
As my spiritual belly began to be filled with more and more of knowing that God was with me no matter what, I heard in my spirit, “hang up” and I looked down and the phone I had been clutching in my hand rang.
Tearfully I answer. Joyfully, 58 minutes into the wait, the coordinator responded……”HOW FAST CAN YOU GET HERE?”
And such is the stuff of our walk in Christ!!!!
How often have we positioned ourselves to want and need from God, some things directly tied to a promise that we are sure He made to us, and then only to find ourselves in a position that seemed more than we can bear. We sadly turn our “knock and the door shall be open” approach to believing into a heartsick lifestyle of being unfulfilled, unsatisfied and yes, even unbelieving unless we see the manifestation of the desire.
Hebrews 11:6 instructs us that “he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Note it says “diligently seek Him”. Not diligently seek it.
In our individual journeys, we must be careful to remember when God calls to ask “Where Are You” that we be found seeking Him and not just the “thing” we are in hopes of. We need to be diligently obsessed with His Word, trusting His timing and praising His goodness even when it seems if all will fall apart.
And when He “hangs up,” we need to trust that He will indeed call again. While we wait, we need to focus on Him and His goodness. Hang up on any thought that causes you to doubt and despair. We need to abandon our consumption with the “will He” notions of whether we will be given that perfect mate. Ignore the siren of ticking biological clock. Avoid the stress of will the money come in time. Steel yourself to know more of Him….even when your child’s life is in the balance..
Trust God and His Goodness. . Even when it seems distant….it is in God’s plan. Even if it turns differently that what you expect, it is in His plan. Even if it is a no…because of reasons greater than we understand….better is in His plan.
Let the love of Him guide you. Let knowing that He only wants the best for you to guide you. Understand that loving Him more than anything you could ask for or desire is key in the knowing that soon He will be looking to call you to higher heights and greater blessings. Some so marvelous that you will forget what you originally wanted. Reset your control and let God have His way with it.
One last question. He wants to know and I am a bit curious in my prayers for you too.
Since we are confident that God is always on time, how soon can YOU get here?!
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Happy 1 Month Birthday
Wow. Hard to hold back grateful tears!!! Today marks 1 month since Isaiah has been given the most wonderful gift. I am so amazed at his progress and much to his embarassment, I get mushy over each milestone. He thought it was too much when I cried watching him eat his first (approved) baked french fry in 5 years.
Want to thank everyone who has stood with us and by us. Every who helped in prayer and financially. Those who cover me at work and those who dutifully make sure my church doesn’t miss me too much. Those who brought a plate and those who pushed a vaccum. For every card and every phone call.
You will never begin to know how much this means to me. How much it means to us.
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