The Big Picture

Early this summer, a sweet friend stopped by the farm at dawn and took his drone up to capture all the beauty.

It was our high season (when I was up to my eyebrows in weeds, trying to stay faithful on succession plantings, coordinating harvests, busy making sure we shipped all our grocery orders on time, obsessed with building beautiful weddings, not to mention making sure my little ones felt loved and secure, were well-fed and safe and sleeping enough…) and I didn’t even realize he had taken the photos.

The next day or so, Steve stopped me in my bustling around and showed me this photo, and I absolutely did not realize he was showing me OUR farm.

“Ohhhh, that’s beautiful,” I gushed, and he agreed.

He asked me to look at the photo more closely.

“It’s so tidy and lush – it’s incredibly lovely,” I said, inwardly wondering a bit about why he was so focused on this photo when there was so much to DO at the moment on our own farm.

“Sarah,” he said, with an meaningful look, “This is a picture of OUR farm.”

I was completely astounded. All I could manage to see was the never-ending task list, the piles of “farm junk” that I wished would disappear, the weeds and pests, the unfinished tunnels, unfilled ditches, and buildings that needed repair. But the farm in the photo was stunning, and it was ours.

This moment is forever etched in my mind, and the lessons are far-reaching. It was a classic case of not seeing the forest for the trees: I was so consumed with the details that I couldn’t see the big picture. The photo marks a turning-point for me, when I determined to focus again on the beauty of our lives and not be so bogged down by daily tasks that I forget to take time and remember the true loveliness that surrounds me.

I think that this principle applies to all our lives, not just flower-farmer lives. In 2011, I was pre-farm life (it was not even on my radar at all!), staying at home with two very small children, not dealing with postpartum hormones very successfully, and struggling in many areas. I started studying beauty in history, literature, and looked back in my old journals, searching specifically for my reactions to beauty. I started a one-year blog project where I purposefully focused on beauty every day, and slowly but surely, my life’s focus changed. I stopped having to make myself look for beauty and began seeing it everywhere.

I believe that God is good, and that he is true, and also that he is beautiful. Beauty is important to him, and it should be to me, too. I am committed to creating as much beauty as I can, to filling my little world and the worlds of those I influence with it. As a woman whose business it is to create beauty, it is all too easy for me to get wrapped up in the details of business and forget where my true inspiration comes from! It seems to be a repeating cycle for me to slowly let the busy-ness of life creep in and distract me from seeing and resting in real Beauty, but I refuse to wallow in my failings! I will re-orient my mind and take the time to stop and (literally!) smell the roses, spend time enjoying the evening light on the flowers (not just hunting for aphids, or bindweed, or….), purposefully spend time admiring the flowers with my children, take a slower-paced walk in the fields with a friend, look up at sunrise and sunset, and not forget the big picture.