Hello, Friends.
Yesterday, after the farm tour, I was on my way to ring the dinner bell when a dear soul stopped me. She wanted to tell me how beautiful she found the farm and how encouraged she was by the stories I’d shared. She said she heard the same thread running through all of them—the challenges, the hard seasons, the things that somehow came together anyway. Trust. And the provision of a good God, season after season.
Then she reached into her bag and pulled out a tiny jar of mustard seeds. She had brought them hoping to plant them somewhere, but she wanted me to have some. So we stood there, face to face, my hand held open while she poured those tiny seeds into it. “Keep dreaming,” she said. “Keep trusting. Look what has grown so far.”
We hugged. She went off with her group to find her seat at the table, and I was left standing there teary-eyed, feeling seen and cared for in a way she couldn’t possibly have known I needed. She still has no idea how many challenges—and how many incredible opportunities—surround us right now.
Mustard grows fast. It flowers brightly and sprawls beyond the boundaries planned for it. It doesn’t always stay where it was put. I keep thinking about that. I see it in how many of you read this little weekly reflection. I see it in the table filling, event after event. I see it in the opportunities springing up as we near the end of this season and in the paths beginning to open toward season twelve—some beyond our borders and well beyond anything we could have planned. Maybe not beyond what we secretly hoped for, though.
The farm has always required more than we have to give. More than we know how to do. More than we are capable of on our own. Some people don’t understand that. Some don’t like it. It’s too much. Too wild. Too demanding. To some, a field of flowering mustard just looks like weeds taking over. They prefer tidy rows. Predictable crops. Something manageable and easy to contain. And that’s fine. But some of us were made to dream big and scatter seeds with expectant hearts. To trust that God can grow something far beyond our own ability to manage it—and then ask us to steward what comes.
So I’m planting these seeds with a few very specific dreams in mind. Not because I know exactly what will grow, but because this is how I’ve been called to live—casting seed with an open hand and depending fully on God for what comes next. And I hope that somewhere in our stories, you find the courage to cast a few seeds of your own. To trust the truth of the parable: what begins small and unseen can grow beyond its borders, making room for something wider, wilder, and more expansive than we can see from here. I’m going to keep dreaming.
In the parable of the mustard seed, the kingdom of God is compared to one of the smallest seeds commonly planted. Once sown, it grows into something far larger than its beginning would suggest, spreading branches wide enough for birds to find shelter. It is a picture of God bringing abundant, expansive growth from something small, hidden, and easily overlooked.
— Matthew 13:31–32; Mark 4:30–32; Luke 13:18–19
By Rachael Jones, Locovore Farm