The Path Between the Lavender Rows

In 1987, Marcel Dupont inherited forty acres of lavender fields outside Valensole, in southern Provence. His grandmother, Colette, had walked those rows every morning for fifty years — pruning, weeding, turning the soil by hand. When Marcel took over, he loved the land deeply but decided the daily walking was unnecessary. He installed automated irrigation, hired seasonal crews, and managed the farm from his kitchen table. Within three years, the fields grew patchy and sparse. Root rot spread undetected. The soil compacted where no one walked.

A neighboring farmer, old Pierre, finally told him the truth. "Your grandmother didn't walk those rows because she had to, Marcel. She walked them because she loved the lavender. And the walking was how the love stayed alive. Her feet told her what her eyes couldn't see."

Marcel returned to the rows. Slowly, over seasons of faithful walking, the fields recovered.

John's brief letter carries this same wisdom. Love, he writes, is not a feeling we hold in our hearts from a distance. Love is walking — steady, daily, obedient movement along the path God has laid out from the beginning. The commandments are not a burden imposed on reluctant servants. They are the rows we walk because we love the One who planted them. Every step of obedience is love made visible, love given feet.