Noonday Notes, Vol. 2 Issue 2

Noonday Notes
Volume 2, Issue 2
May 22nd, 2026

I’m still thinking about circles this week. They’re everywhere in creation. Seeds. Raindrops. Eggs. Nests. Planets. Seasons. Tree rings tell stories of time through circles. The garden works in cycles. Beds rotate. Fields rest. Crops return. Soil is amended and worked again. God seems to work in a circular fashion as well, returning people to previous places often with a redeemed purpose.

I’ve been thinking about how God is redeeming areas of my life, returning to fields of my past that have been fallow for decades. I used to be a farmer, but I sold my 25 acres in Central New York to seek greener grass. In my early 20s I spent time in Boone, NC teaching outdoor skills to foster kids from Miami; things like basket weaving, canoeing, fire by friction, and wood carving.

On Sunday, after an incredible sermon by Pastor Brit, I went home and circled back on some pastimes: making jam, pickles, and basket weaving. Again, all things I used to do in other seasons of my life. It was in that remembered making that I gained insight on the vision and design for our upcoming Farm Camp at Grace June 8th-11th. Choosing to anchor the curriculum in how our lives move in circles of trials, germination, formation, and harvest. Round and round like a basket.

It has been over 20 years since I made one of these rustic baskets with vines, but the muscle memory was still there. God is returning me to past skills, gifts, and talents. Storytime on the farm with little kids, creating a farm camp for teens, growing food for people. In life there can be things we thought had gone dormant. Skills we buried. Ideas that failed to launch. Callings we thought belonged to us. But, dormant is not dead.

Some things are waiting for the right time, the right soil, or a different reason to grow. Circling back is not going backward with regret, it’s returning with purpose. What may feel lost can become part of what He uses next. God often works in circles and wastes very little. He’s a resourceful gardener, using our despair, our fork in the road choices, and our willingness to return to the field.

Naomi returned to her homeland as a widow, with her devoted daughter-in-law Ruth. That return began a story of redemption, beginning in the fields of Bethlehem that generations later would birth the ultimate Redeemer in a manger. (Read Ruth).

Strand by strand, season by season, and perhaps in ways we don’t understand at the time God is restoring and redeeming. What are you circling back on? What old gifts could you return to with a new purpose?