The Bamboo Farmer
Written by Bethany Plett
The hot sun beats down on the farmer in the field as he repeatedly tilts the tin watering can and lets the warm water soak into the scorched dry earth. Day after day he faithfully waters the field, pulling fresh water from the nearby ditches winding through the rice fields and bamboo forests in the south-western farmland of China. Sometimes his father will help, or a friend, because it is a very big task. He is always grateful for their help, but knows that he is responsible to keep the soil moist and fertilized for the next several years. Week after week, month after month, he carefully tends the soil, pulling the weeds and keeping the soft earth free from anything that would hinder his anticipated bamboo crop. What he will see for the next 5 years is an empty field, but what he can’t see beneath the sod is the intricate root systems that are developing and branching out from the tiny bamboo seeds he had so carefully placed into the ground long ago.
One morning, he wakes up to find little green shoots peeking up from their dark resting places. He is excited and eager to watch his bamboo sprouts grow! He continues to water them day after day, and soon the plants are as tall as he is! He is glad for the little bit of shade his plants provide while he tends to his crop.
It has been 5 weeks since he first saw the tender plants pushing up through the soil, and now his forest is towering with 90 foot high slender stalks of bamboo. Neighbours and friends come to see his beautiful crop, and he is pleased. All those hot, wearisome hours he spent toiling in his empty field were worth it!
From a mother’s perspective, I noticed some striking similarities as I pondered the life of the bamboo farmer. Our precious children are gifted to us, chosen by the Master designer, to take care of and nurture while we are together for a short span of time. We plant many seeds of love and truth into their hearts, and wait for the tiny seeds of life to grow. We spend much of our time carefully tending the life that surrounds them, because we know they will some day need to stand up strong and tall. But it would be impossible without a healthy root system, deeply grounded in faith and truth.
Like a wise man once said, “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you, but not from you. And though they are with you, they do not belong to you. You may give them your love, but not your thoughts. You may house their bodies, but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the Archer’s hand be for gladness; for even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.” -Khalil Gibran
We have such an awesome opportunity to be tools in the Master’s hands as He prepares our children, through us, for the greater good in His future kingdom. He has promised us His strength and given us His Word for inspiration and wisdom as we seek to fulfill this great work He has called us to! Our sleepless nights, sacrificial love, and careful tending of the soil of their hearts does not go unnoticed by our Heavenly Father, and if we are faithful, we will rejoice when we are blessed with a bountiful harvest!
“Let us not grow weary in well doing, for in due season, we shall reap, if we faint not.” Galatians 6:9