I love to garden! I love the feeling of seeing my hard word bring about fruit. It is so exhilarating to go outside and witness by God’s great grace 4 ft. tall tomato plants thriving in the hot July sun! I love seeing my children discover bugs; lady bugs, grass hoppers, spiders (ew!) and potato bugs. I love trimming, pruning and weeding to show off a newly taken care of space. It makes my heart happy.
Life lessons about gardening that I have learned this year:
1. You cannot weed yourself into an amazing garden, you must replace the weeds with something beautiful.
This life lesson is very pertinent to anyone wanting to make a change in their life. Bad thoughts, grumpy attitudes, anger, debt, poor physical being, etc. cannot just be eradicated from our lives. The negative space is immediately taken over again by the seeds, roots and life left behind by the weeds. We have a beautiful vegetable garden. We have purposely chosen to put thick, black tarp like material over every space in the garden that does not have a plant. This eliminates the ability to produce weeds everywhere. In the locations where there are plants, the weeds also grow. In the front of the garden, we have a space about 2 feet wide that has no bis-queen. Guess what has shown up, you bet. Weeds. Every week we are out pulling, picking and plucking because the weeds have roots that grow deep. In order to have a beautiful garden, I cannot just weed I need to replace the weeks with something beautiful. That may be more veggies, more bis-queen, flowers, or even rocks. But until I replace the empty space, something uninvited will grow.
2. Hardship causes our roots to sink deep.
Last summer we lost our vegetable garden, and most of our back fence to fire. We were lucky that we did not lose our home. That summer we had spent hours and hours building a new garden, with trenches and hills, irrigation, and plants. It was absolutely beautiful!
My heart ached as we looked upon the destruction. Ashes, smoldering rocks, and a newly opened view to the field behind our house. There was char everywhere on the posts that were still standing. Our plastic 5 gallon buckets were flat and black as burnt pancakes. And our plants which were once full of life were absolutely and totally decimated. I overlooked our garden from our patio, overwhelmed with grief, and gratitude. “Sarah, I am watching over you. I have sent angels around your home to protect and look after you. Trust me.” The still small voice whispered reassurance, that the prayers from the years past, that my home would be a refuge from the storms of life, had been very physically answered on this day.
Our garden was gone, our fence needed to be repaired. The grass, we thought we were going to loose, our small trees that we had just planted we were sure were going to die.
What happened was surprising. The grass grew back. Literally, from what seemed to be from death, now is flourishing. Our apple tree, just four feet tall sprung forth with leaves. Even two of the young trees that we planted that died, sprouted new trees this year, only 1 – 2ft tall now. Life comes fervently from those who have experienced great trials. Roots that are tested grow deeply.
In life, those who have experienced hardship are required to grow deeper roots of self worth, testimony and strength to survive the wicked temperatures from the adversary. Despite what it looks like on the surface – those roots grow deeply and ultimately encourage strength, resilience and fortitude to carry on brighter and stronger than before.
3. The fires of life fertilize our earth so we can produce more abundantly than we ever imagined.
We replanted, remulched, resprinklered our garden. It is amazing. I have never seen such beautiful tomato plants. Our cucumbers are three feet wide, with dozens of blooms. Our tomatos are four feet tall, and at least that wide with hundreds of blooms. We have grapes and berries growing. Our corn is looking amazing. Our beans and peas are flourishing.
The life lesson I take, is that from the fires of life, when all is destroyed, the ash that is left behind makes great fertilizer for the opportunities ahead. While last year, our entire crop was lost, all was not lost. We gained great fertilizer for this year and are going to have an amazing harvest.
In the face of loss; death, divorce, abandonment, rejection and pain, when all seems to taken from you, all is not lost. The fires of life create opportunities for future abundance. While that does not take away the pain for the present moment, for those who suffer, it can provide a brilliant resource of life for those who let it.
Mind you, many people after personal tragedy, never rebuild. They never look past the emptiness created by destruction. Rebuilding takes time, effort and patience. When you choose life and work over despair and heartache, it is then that healing takes place.
4. Out of fruit that spoils sprouts new life.
Finally, this summer we cleared the debris pile created from rebuilding our fence. We had a huge stack of partially burned wood sitting in last year’s melon garden. This garden is in dire need of attention; weeds, garbage bags, old chairs, leaves from the fall clean up and old wood. Wow. If our vegetable garden is a beauty, this garden is a mess.
We borrowed Jayson’s truck, Jonny’s brother, and loaded the pile of wood. We discovered an unexpected set of new neighbors, i.e. mean paper wasps who had made a new home in the wood pile, who were not happy with us. Needless to say Jonny got stung. A few weeks later. Guess what I discover? Now that the debris has been moved, I have watermelon, broccoli and zucchini growing! All of these plants are self seeding from last year’s remnants in the garden! Through all that trash has come a harvest. Already I have picked four zucchini, and just found four small watermelon plants growing!
Sometimes in life the fruit that we so diligently work towards growing spoils. We let an idea, or a prospect sit too long waiting for the perfect time to harvest, and it goes bad. You never know what seeds are being planted for future years of fruits.
