So Sweet the Birds Hush Singing…

This summer has been a productive one. We’ve traveled some, laughed a lot, cried a few times, taught our youngest how to make poot noises with his armpit, and lounged around in pajamas for too long on most days. And we’ve I’ve learned a lot. A lot.

Because we planted a garden.

Hurricane Michael uprooted a very large hickory tree that toppled right on our house and created quite the mess, and in its wake left a naked bed of dirt. Exposed, it gets lots of sun and is watered perfectly by the now fixed sprinkler system, so it felt fitting to do something there. As a family, we settled on a vegetable garden. A “victory garden,” of sorts, even.

First the ground had to be tilled. Man what a job -fit for a man – but this woman took the bull by the horns (or the tiller by the handle bars) and did work. Sweaty and nasty, hard in some places, easy in others, but it got the land mostly ready for sowing, albeit a few gnarled roots that wouldn’t budge, wouldn’t budge. That was OK, we thought. We could work around that in spite of themselves. (Thankful for a Gardener that sees that in me, too.) After some careful decision making about what exactly to plant (along with a few picked out in haste – hello tomatillos -what in the green salsa were we thinking), we then mapped out the places that seemed best to place each one. Digging holes in dirt with sweet dimpled hands holding make-shift shovels and aging-ish hands with spades, we opened up the dark earth that was prior the death bed of our large tree, now to be an incubator for new life. It was exciting and a little scary. Not scary in the monster sort of way, but scary in the way that we invested some cash on these seedlings with the hope, the hope that our investment would return something. And HOPEFULLY that something would be edible.

But that takes time, y’all.

Have I mentioned I’m impatient? Am. Completely and totally a slave to this microwave world. While my impatience trait can sometimes be to a benefit–I get things done. Like tilling. — it can also be a total encumbrance. You know, Hurry up and make a tomato you seedling! I want a salad tonight; tomorrow for lunch at the very latest. Chop chop! Wait is a four letter word to me. I can’t stand to wait for things to come to fruition. Pun intended. So it is apparent to me that this is something I need work on, as I have found myself and family in a season of wait. And because our God has a sense of humor in teaching lessons (especially for me), He saw fit that we plant a garden.

What a summer of learning, and not just the armpit tooting variety.

Each morning, while walking the dog out for his morning duties in my muumuu, I come to my garden alone. It’s funny; the dew is wet on my toe-ses. And there’s this voice I hear, falling on my ear. I know WHO He is that discloses these things, these truths to me…

Our lives are like a garden. All of us, y’all. In fact, the Bible teaches us that life itself began in a garden. A beautiful garden. Laid bare in the earth, in the darkness, we are formed. It’s where the “magic” of formation occurs. The dark. Where our hearts take hold and become the seed bed. And then, with the light from the actual sun, the new life is coaxed out. Tender at first, baring itself to the elements of the world. Pushing deeper roots down in the dark dirt to strengthen it and let it take hold as the winds come and blow it and the rains pelt it down. Sometimes those roots don’t take. Perhaps that was a seed not meant for fruition-maybe it wasn’t good fruit, maybe it wasn’t the right time, maybe it wasn’t for us, maybe we were needing light from the Actual Son, maybe the weeds took over. I can’t say for sure because I’m not the Master Gardener; I’m just a helper along the way, trying my best to do my part, tending my little laid bare patch of dirt…

The weeds. Oh man the weeds. Daily I have to pull those things out. Tend to every.single.day. Every.single.day. And preferably first thing in the morning when it’s still a little cool and I’ve got the energy to stoop down (because you have to stoop to get weeds, lowly they are) and do it. Those weeds will begin to choke out a squash blossom over the course of 24 hours, beat down a cucumber sprout in a matter of days…leave for vacation for a week and my lands. The garden of goodness looks like it’s a hot bed of angry vines, wayward grasses, and other inedible fruits not of your labor. Or your intentional labor. So I bent down and picked, plucked, yanked, cussed, because that’s what you have to do with the weeds. Same with the “weeds” in our lives. Got to pluck ’em daily like a hair on an old lady’s chinny-chin-chin, best done in the light, with the light. And as a chore to tend to daily–exhausting as that is, even more exhausting (and seemingly overwhelming) does the chore become when we let those weeds sit in the driver’s seat. Some of those days we see THAT weed again. AGAIN. Like, didn’t I just remove you yesterday? You’re back? WHAT??!! We’ve got to stoop low, get our hands dirty, and do the work. Every.day. Preferably in the cool, rested chill of the morning, with time I’ve made myself carve out, while I’ve got the refreshed-from-a-night’s-slumber strength to do the work. It’s work. I’m not preaching to the choir here, I’m preaching to myself. Let Jesus take the wheel.

And then those pesky bugs. Remember that wild hair we had planting tomatillos? Alan makes the most delicious green salsa that requires these little boogers from the tomato family. We thought we for sure needed to grow some of these so that we would have some farm-to-table eating here on taco nights. The white rectangular pointy-ended stake said you had to plant two of the plants so that they could cross pollinate in order to produce fruit. In other words, there would be no produce by itself. It had to do it together to make something delicious. And that which perpetuates the pollination is bees. Bees. With stingers. And buzzing noises. That poke and flit from flower to flower. Maybe even annoying at times? But without those little stinger butts, there would be no growth, no changes made. So I’m saying we need bees. This analogy working on any of y’all’s seed beds right now? Your heart-garden? We need the bees. And maybe I’m a bee to you–but you need me. Ha ha ha ha ha. Just had to throw that out there.

Buzz.

But with those pollinated populous verdant spheres abundantly growing, a coup of sorts was almost enacted. Take over the other green spheres that would otherwise turn scarlet. Choke them out! No tomato left behind! You don’t belong! I need more sun! I demand to be on top, encompassing you tomato, keeping you DOWN! And so, because I’m an Enneagram 8 and an ardent supporter of the underdog, I did what I had to do. Prune. Snip the suckers into order. Not submission, because that’s not the point. Hear that? Being pruned by the Master Gardener is not to make us submissive to the reality that we can be chopped down in a blow, because that’s not the way He works. Sure, He absolutely could because He is all powerful, but that’s not His nature. He wants the best for us always. And sometimes, a shape up is what’s best for us, just like my tomatillos. Sure, some blossoms were lost in the nipping, some whole limbs that weren’t doing us any favor except sucking the life out of our core lopped off, but it’s for its best life. Does it hurt a little bit? It does. Does it hurt the gardener too? Absolutely. Because the gardener doesn’t want the trimming to take the life out of the plant (the person), but rather give opportunity for new life, new growth. It’s for the best. Branches that choke out another one’s sun? Gots to go. Branches that have some withered leaves that are more like leeches? Gots to go. A heavy laden branch of empty seed pods? Gots to go. And when the plant looks tired and weary after producing an abundance of fruit at one point? It’s going, too. Making room for new growth, new purposes, fresh starts, and sometimes making literal room for something. Something, someone else’s turn.

Like a garden in a tilled up spot that represents new life, new change. And lots and lots of lessons learned and being taught, even as I type.

Gotta run to Lowe’s for some fertilizer and some Sevin Dust. These worms in my garden gots.to.go. And the fruit laying dormant in the flower that’s trying to bloom, just waiting, waiting, waiting maybe a little more patiently for its time to shine; it needs that fertilizer.

Good thing I know just the Gardener to ask for help on what He recommends. I’ll walk with Him and talk with Him; we’ll tarry there. And we’ll share joy there (in that place of wait that is sometimes dark),

None other has ever known.