Lessons From the Garden ~ New Life Springs Forth From Death

It's funny how we become depleted.

The river of energy that keeps a mother going, occasionally gives out in a gush when crisis hits.

But more often it seems that a slow leak allows it to trickle out.  If left unstopped that mother may soon find herself gazing around in dismay at her life all a-mess.

It's not always that she has made poor decisions.  Yes, there are times when she might say yes too many times.

But sometimes things just pile one upon another in ways that are beyond her control.

There is a rhythm here on the farm, an ebb and flow of seasons... a time for raising chickens, a time for breaking new ground in the garden, a time for allowing the garden to dry up and die.  As the years pass, we begin to learn the language of our farm and understand the seasons.

Now, April, is a season of new life.  Babies.

Baby pigs.  Baby cats.  Baby cows.  Baby chicks.  Baby plants.  Everywhere renewal, life just bursting through.  It is a time when the farm calls out to me loud... work here, be here, live all this goodness.

And yet April is also the season for retreats, and book sales, and Easter and fundraisers.  It is the season when we are thinking of finishing up our school year, and what we need to do to round out our academics.

A few nights ago, at the end of another full day, I stood at the sink of dirty dishes and just felt tired.  Dirty dishes, again.  So much left on the to-do list.  Heaviness settled and I fought back tears.

Perhaps what I should have done then was to whisper a prayer and dive in, but instead I asked my husband to pray for me, for my constant struggle against my lazy sin nature, then I picked up my camera and walked outside.

It was a lovely soft spring evening.  I walked through bird song to the baby pigs, and watched them through slats in the fence as they vigorously nursed.  The walk calmed me.

I kept thinking about renewal.  New life... transformation... fresh starts.

Fresh starts don't always come through brand new things.  Despite what our consumption driven culture tells us - buy this! start new! bigger and better! - real life, the created world, tells us something else.

Life comes from life. Babies come from their mothers, drawing their very life from their mothers' own body.  There isn't new life without a giving.

Life even comes from death.  The flower fades and droops to the ground, in its death bearing seeds of life to the soil, seeds which will spring up and bloom the next year... life from death.

I left the pigs and headed to my garden.  My garden is a weedy mess this year, woefully neglected, a blinking red neon light on my to-do list.  The only thing I have planted is tomatoes.  A few weeks earlier I had picked up tomato starts.  Shortly thereafter we had a surprise freeze... forecast said lows in the mid-40's, I woke up to frost on the grass.  Most of the starts were frozen. 

I planted them anyway, hoping.  Because I know about renewal.

Now, into the tangle of weeds I walked, scanning my planted row hopefully.  And there, in the crook of death, in an angle between green stem and dead withered branch, new life sprung.

This is it.  This is how I can live in this world of sorrow and suffering and tragedy.  This is how I can wake up each morning no matter what and have hope.  This is where I draw my energy from when it is leaking out.

From the brokenness comes healing.  From death comes life.

Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse,
    And a branch from his roots will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him,
    The spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    The spirit of counsel and strength,
    The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
~ Isaiah 11:1-2 ~

It is a mystery that defies explanation (although we try, oh how we try)... in Jesus' death we have found life.  Real life.  Always and forever life, not just after our earthly bodies perish, but now, NOW!

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
~ 2 Corinthians 5:17 ~

Drinking in living water from God's very creation, His whispers to my heart from the life bursting out on our little homestead, I was refreshed that evening.  The leak was plugged, my energy renewed.

I capped my lense and walked back in the house to find my husband sweating over the sink. I rushed to assure him my prayer request was not a veiled hint and he turned, smiling gently, to me.

He put his arms around me and said, "'Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?' (James 2:15-16) You asked me to pray for you.  I am praying for you."

He turned back to the sink and began to lay out a family plan for managing the kitchen work. From the broken places, newness coming forth again.

Today I am thinking about the broken bread, the broken body.  In these next few days before Easter brokenness will be much on my mind.

But brokenness is deep in my heart.  It is the unceasing reminder that I would be perishing if it were not for the miraculous fact that life springs from death.

My life from His death.  Hallelujah!

Lessons From the Garden ~ Morning Glory

Oh Morning Glory, how beautiful you are.

You cover my garden with your delicate purple petals, your lush greenery rich and plentiful.  Innocently your flowers nod in the breeze.

Yet underneath is a mass of choking vines.  You are also called Bindweed.

Your tendrils reach out and grasp anything near.  You choke the life out of every plant you climb.  You slow my weed cutter with the mass of your vines... it sputters to a stop.

Oh sin which so easily entangles, how alluring you look.  

How lovely it seems to think about myself.  How lush and rich other women's lives appears.  Gently nodding, yes, yes, think about you.  What about you...

Wretched sin... when your shallow beauty is ripped away, nothing remains but lifelessness.  Nothing but death. 

Oh Lord, wrench the morning glories from my soul.  Help me run with endurance the race set before me.  Show me your face Lord, that I may fix my eyes on you and bask in your light, that the flower of my heart may open wide to receive you.

"Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus"  Hebrews 12:1-2

Lessons From the Garden ~ Pruning

As I was doing some pruning recently, I had to make some hard cuts.

Just like thinning sprouts in a vegetable garden, when you prune, you don't just remove what is dead, you often remove green as well. This has always been hard for me, so I have tended to hold back on pruning.

In the past few years I have become more aggressive in my pruning, and have been surprised by the increased bounty as a result. The plant's energy is less diffused and is able to focus on putting forth more flowers and fruit, instead of more branches.

As I cut away dead branches and green branches the other day, I was thinking about how I resist God's pruning in my life. I can accept Him pruning the dead branches. Yet on more than one occasion God has cut something out of my life that I thought was good, and could have borne fruit. I've mourned those green branches.

But like an experienced gardener, God anticipates the increased harvest.

Oh Lord, give me the faith to trust your pruning shears!

Lessons From the Garden ~ Our Offerings Magnified

We've had a rough summer gardening-wise. We live in the south, where we have two major gardening seasons - the spring garden and the fall garden. These two gardening seasons are broken up by blistering heat on one side and an occasional freeze on the other.

This spring I had a fairly decent garden, until my life became consumed with making an endless parade of costumes and props for our daughter's play. In April and May, neglect was my main gardening strategy.

In June we went on a three week vacation. By the time we returned, with the assistance of our timed irrigation and several unusually heavy rainfalls, the garden had dramatically transformed into the Amazon jungle. A fruitless jungle.

All the plants that had been producing had died except for the tomatoes. There were lots and lots of overripe, and even dried, tomatoes on the plants. The tomatoes that appeared edible were bland and unappetizing.

Needless to say, I was discouraged.

I was afraid to let my kids in the garden for fear of snakes. The waist-high grass was full of hard burrs with evil double hooks. And did I mention the blistering heat?

My gardening strategy morphed from neglect to utter denial. Garden? What garden?

One morning in July, I went outside early while it was still possible to actually breathe, and peeking nervously over the gate, saw that the dying tomato plants had sprouted a few new green leaves. Curious, I went into the garden, and to my amazement saw green leaves poking out of browning tomato stems everywhere. This unexpected surge of life inspired me, and I spent several hours weeding and pruning 4 or 5 of the plants closest to the gate.

The next day when I went out to continue down the row, my carefully pruned plants were covered with grasshoppers. It seems that the weeds had been camouflage, and without those swaying grass fronds, the bright green leaves shouted "Eat me! Eat me!" in irresistible Grasshopperese.

That was it, I was done. I didn't even feel guilty about not working in the garden. Most days.

But the time for planting the fall garden is upon us and today it was time to be a grown-up. I wanted to begin taking dominion over that garden again! I decided I would spend two hours in the garden with no expectations of what I would actually accomplish. Because I had turned off the irrigation system weeks ago, I had definite expectations of what I would find in the Garden of Death - a lot of stuff to rip out.

I grabbed the weed whacker, put on my protective gear, and wrenched the gate free from the morning glories that bound it to the fence. Advancing slowly, the weed whacker leveled the waist high grass in the paths along the tomato bed. I was too busy trying to hold the weed whacker steady with my out-of-practice arms, and my eyes were too blurry from the constant drip-drip-drip of sweat to actually look at the beds.

I put the weed whacker away, gulped some ice water in the kitchen, and then, bravely (oh I felt terribly brave), I did what I least wanted to do... I went back to the garden to honor my time commitment.

And there, at the beginning of that tomato bed, I saw a miracle. Somehow, God had preserved those grasshopper-covered plants that I had pruned. Beyond them were dry dead sticks, but those first few plants that I had tended were not only alive and leafy, they had flowers and sweet little green tomatoes.

I stood there with my mouth open, then burst out laughing. My tiny effort, given with hope, had been received and magnified. Those itty bitty balls of green didn't care that my hopes had been dashed, that I had mourned the tragic loss of my garden. They were busy fulfilling their calling... growing.

My offering was so small, yet with God's provision of sun and rain, that offering turned into tomatoes. Imagine!

"Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord." 1 Cor 15:58

What encouragement it gives me to know that while I have so little to offer, and so frequently get discouraged, God has the eternal perspective! He takes every offering of ourselves and magnifies it to His glory.