Glean

I love the story of Ruth and Naomi. There are so many reasons why this relationship should have ended, but it didn't. Naomi encourages Ruth to move on, which ultimately sets her up for her next blessing, Boaz. It was in Boaz’s field that he found Naomi gleaning. Gleaning by definition means to gather after harvest or to extract from multiple sources. What are you gleaning? More importantly, where are you gleaning? We need to glean in fields that still have something after a harvest- meaning a source that has more than enough, overflow. We need to glean from sources that have the ability to produce our next blessing. We need to glean from people, situations, and relationships. We must be in the proper position, with the right people to glean. Ruth was with Naomi, in Boaz’s field. Where are you? Who are you with? Can you glean?

Regret

Woulda. Coulda. Shoulda. We all have some things we regret. We all have some things we wish we would have done differently. Since time travel is not possible, we have to live with those mistakes. We have to glean the lessons and chalk them up as life experience. Every experience is not going to be positive. Every opportunity is not going to the end they way we may think it should, and that’s ok. Regret is a part of life. We just have to make sure we don’t live there. Forgive yourself and others.