Tulips are my first memory of experiencing what can grow. I remember the bright red line of happy dancing blooms. I would pretend they were more fragrant than they were. They brought joy. My family grew lots of other things, but I never really thought much of it all, honestly, until I wanted it for myself.
At age 21, married, we landed in a home where I could hear a rooster crowing. This was MY TIME to garden - even if I didn't have a clue what I was doing. My husband & I lived on a small plot next to farmland. The sod was freshly laid atop a field that had grow weeds for years.
I ripped up some sod & planted a few rows of corn. All I got was weeds, tall weeds. Failure. Tall embarrassing failure. And, this being our first yard, we were also failures at lawn care. Our neighbor reported us to the authorities for having noxious weeds. We have litigious documentation of our failure.
5 years, a new home & 2 kids later... Still no garden success. I had a few raspberry canes & a rose bush that never bloomed. Pregnant with my 3rd, I put all my hope into raspberries. Their care matched the energy I didnt have left. Unfortunatly a broad leave killer got too close. Bye bye raspberries. Hello my friend failure.
That same year was a total fail in the yard world as well. We began referring to our yard as a jungle because it literally was. The fence was covered in vine, several trees & bushes volunteered from the ground & were left unchecked. The surface area where actual grass was growing became smaller & smaller. We lived in jungle wild.
I was delusional thinking I could ever possibly garden. I couldn't even keep grass alive. & everything that was living was crowding out my sense of sanity! Being preggers & perhaps a tad hormonal, these circumstances were met with a perhaps less rational & more emotional mind.
That was a week before I was admitted to the hospital. My growing baby was 21 weeks along. Fortunately babe #3 was fine. I, however, had a kidney stone that was not curable while pregnant. After an uncomfortable device was surgically implanted inside my 'tummy area' I was discharged from the hospital. I still remember the relentless pain & helpless feeling. I could now do nothing.
The day I came home my sweet husband, feeling a bit helpless as well, decided he was going to wage war on the jungle wild. While laying on the couch I saw clompers, a chain saw, gloves, duct tape & several implements of destruction heading out the back door.
After a while, he came back in.
He was carrying a watermelon.
I was confused. Did he steal it? Did he leave me here with Babe #1 & #2 to run off to the store while I was on bed rest? Was this a joke? Did a neighbor give it to him? Funny... We don't have any neighbors growing anything that I'm aware of.
"It was growing in the middle of our yard. There is another one just like it still there." , he said.
I was still confused. "that was jungle out there! How did a watermelon plant... Oh I remember when we were eating watermelon & spitting the seeds off the back porch. That was like 3 months ago!"
This hidden watermelon treasure in the midst of my helplessness & failure spoke volumes to me:
true value vs perception
relentless nature of life - seeds WANT growth
we sow seeds, but the LORD brings harvest.
fruit is undeniable & unmistakable
patience thru failure
forfeiting gratitude in failure to see good
God does not abide inside my limited view
Today I'm reminded that it all comes back around to SPACE. If two watermelons could grow neglected among the weeks, then perhaps conditions are favorable in that spot. The next year I experience the first successful garden...in the middle of my yard...in that spot. Not exactly the space I would have chosen.
Babylon was the perfect lush place to create a garden & build up to the heavens (Gen 11). Yet it is in the wilderness, in that space, where God told his people to build a tabernacle - the place where God dwells. It is in the wilderness where the Glory of the Lord appeared (Ex 40:24-35).
My space doesn't need to build anything. My space; my heart, mind, soul & body, just needs to be a place where God can dwell - Emmanuel.
Now, I have tulips & more thriving. Also that rose bush finally bloomed. My garden failures, although still numerous, do not draw police attention to my house. (We can now thank our barking beagle for that.) I find serenity digging in earth dirt, regardless my seeming inability to make success - knowing instead the joy that God meets me there & speaks to me through His success.
But I the Lord will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys.
I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched grown into springs.
I will put in the desert the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive.
I will set junipers in the wasteland, the fir and the cypress together,
so that people may see and know, may consider and understand,
that the hand of the LORD has done this,
that the Holy One of Israel has created it.
Isaiah 41:17-20
