We have a garden this year.  It’s at the farm and we have been working hard.  We’ve planted and replanted, used soaker hoses when the sun was blasting and no rain was in sight, and we have prayed.  Often and fervently.

We have planted squash (crooked neck), onions (red… although they look mighty purple to me), red potatoes (they ARE actually red), cucumbers, tomatoes, a few sweet potatoes and mustard greens.

Neither of us have had a garden in years and we were happy to get out and work in the fresh air and grow delicious vegetables—looking forward to enjoying some of them right out of the freezer this winter when the “fresh off the vine” are long gone and just a lip-smacking memory.

Seeds are all sizes.  The mustard seed is definitely small.   Maybe the size of the period at the end of a sentence with the font on “bold.”  We have faith they will come up.  And they are.

I think of what I call “mustard seed faith.”  Just a little goes a long way in our lives.

I have had faith the sun will come up, my car will drive me to work, the stove will heat my food and the printer will print (that takes faith AND prayer, that dastardly machine).

Of course the squash seeds are larger.  The red onions already had the small button ready to go.  But the tiny mustard seed will work hard to come up just like the rest.  Tiny but mighty.  Just like faith.

Of course I have had hope and faith that the hair color I chose would be the right one after not coloring for six months but, well, we will talk about that next month.  Maybe.  I can live with it.  There will be no pictures to accompany this essay.

I have always had a hopeful heart.  I look for the good things more at this stage in my life.  I worry about less and less every day.  I let things roll more often and choose my hills to die on.   A friend and I have laughed for years about “the summer of Lisa” (only Seinfeld fans will understand.)  But for years, there have been hard summers:  hurricanes and damages, deaths of beloved family members, the passing of precious pets, and cancer.

The house was remodeled, the family members are still loved and not forgotten, pictures of family and pets are proudly displayed and the cancer is gone.

This summer, with the garden and the green growing things, a little camper remodeling, and a few day trips planned, I think it might actually  be “the summer of Lisa.”  I have faith that it will.