A Garden Story About Life and Why Cultivating Beauty Matters

A Garden Story About Life and Why Cultivating Beauty Matters

by | Nov 3, 2019 | Devotional, Stories

A Garden Story

It All Started with Tomatoes

I love a good garden story. In fact, everything about a garden reminds me of God. As I work in my garden, I am learning so much about Him and particularly about His love of beauty. Here’s my garden story. It all started with tomatoes…

In the last three years, mostly because I have wanted my kids to experience it, I have been gardening. We started with tomatoes, red peppers, and some herbs—all in pots. Lots of ups and downs. Big learning curve. I have been a giddy child at watching seeds sprout. I have been super discouraged when I’ve found weird-looking bugs all over my sunflowers, or big beautiful tomatoes from this side—split right open on the other; or tiny red and black bugs camping out all over my milkweed. I have felt the disappointment of failure more times than I can count.

Fruit Trees

For some reason smaller plants felt more manageable to me, so I have avoided trees. I’ve dreamed of fruit trees, but had not ventured out. Intimidation I think.

This year, my husband heard from a friend ( thank you Billy!) about a guy off School House Road (Lakeland Tropicals) who sells all kinds of fruit trees, and he thought of me. Three days later, on a hot Saturday afternoon, I stood looking out my window watching Shane plant an avocado tree, a cherry tree, a Moringa tree, and a Texas Sage in the little garden plot I had covered with cardboard and leaves a few months before. I had not intended to plant anything actually—too much disappointment. But this. This stirred my heart right up.

A Small Orchard

So as you do, I went out and purchased a small orchard.  Like, a lot of trees. and plants. Like I spent more money on these plants than we will spend on that really good mattress we have been wanting for two years.

The guilt and the shame came over me a couple nights ago as I lay in bed at 3AM, awake, feeling overwhelmed at just how many trees I bought, and just how little I know about fruit trees, and just how much money I spent… so I lay there, feeling this sense of dread, like a “what have I done??” feeling… and here was what I was saying/hearing: How could you do this? Why would you think its ok to buy plants when there are children starving and people homeless and loved ones grieving and tragedy striking and …

Beauty is Important to God

But the next morning, I was talking to God, and He reminded me that beauty is important to Him. And that cultivating beauty is just as important as cultivating compassion and kindness. The truth is though, they are not separate. Beauty births life. Where the tree flowers, the fruit forms. And where there is fruit, there is opportunity for kindness and compassion.

A garden is so many beautiful things. It is Life. Nutrition. Provision. Health. Beauty. Peace. Oasis. Solitude. Healing. Friendship. Truth. Discovery. Revelation. It is ‘home’ to a million creatures. It is a place for me to learn and grow.  It can be where clarity comes. It is an unapologetically needy child. It is a wise teacher. It is a constant friend.

I have learned a little bit from a lot of mistakes, so I pray and dig and plant and watch. I have a little bit of faith and apparently I only need a little bit. Letting go of the outcome. Taking a risk.  Believing beauty—all by itself—is worth pursuing. This is why I’m giving the garden another go this year.

What about you? I’d love to hear your garden story, too.

Luke 1: Reflections On the Redeeming of All Things

Luke 1: Reflections On the Redeeming of All Things

by | Dec 24, 2013 | Devotional, Inner Healing, Stories

Luke 1: Reflections On the Redeeming of All Things

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior…For He who is mighty has done great things for me…He has scattered the proud…He has filled the hungry with good things… 

…Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people (from Luke 1).

Waking Up to Redemption

It’s Christmas Eve.   I wake to the familiar whirr of my box fan and the dim morning that peaks in past the tops of my tall, plum drapes.  I sleep in a Murphy bed, which means I wake up in my living room every morning to my favorite thing about my apartment: the ceiling.

I spent seven months renovating, living in a construction zone and changing my mind about paint colors almost daily, finally settling on  colors named after foods like shortbread, olive, lemongrass and cafe ole.  And for all the work that was done (and I had help) I still can’t get over how much I love my ceiling.

For me, this is the piece de resistance… a pearl white ceiling with a grid of thick beams painted the color of Espresso Beans. There’s a brand new fan and lighting fixture in the middle of the grid, but it doesn’t work because there is something wrong with the electrical wiring.  None of my overhead lights work.  But I don’t notice it anymore because I use lots of lamps.

Look What the Lord Has Done for Me

Waking up most mornings I feel a deep sense of gratitude for a few reasons.  One, because I get to enjoy waking up slowly, almost every morning.  And two, because look what the Lord has done for me.  The colors on my walls and my beautiful ceiling remind me of where I was three years ago.

It was by far the hardest season of my life, as I was freshly separated and beginning the divorce process.  I felt like I had failed at everything there was to fail at in life.  Scraping—it felt like forever—layers and layers, years of old paint and funk and crud  and other people’s junk off tables, benches, and walls. (Can you tell I don’t like to do things half way?)

It was symbolic, the scraping.  Hours, days, weeks and months of scraping provides plenty of time for reflection. It felt like layers and layers of my life were being scraped at and peeled away and exposed.  It was the worst and best thing that ever happened to me.

Mary’s Magnificat and the Prophecy of Zacharias

Luke 1:46-79

For the last six months I’ve been finding much comfort and clarity in the first chapter of Luke, specifically Mary’s Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) and the prophetic declaration of Zacharias following the birth of his son John (Luke 1:68-79).   This morning, Christmas Eve, I woke up and decided to read them again.  I love these passages because I am coming to terms so much personally with this:

God redeems everything.

Wonderful News

How good the news of Jesus’ birth really is.  It is big news—wonderful news because it means that however things may look, however ugly or hopeless or upside down things may be in my life, in the media, or across the world, there is a reality that we can’t quite wrap our minds around that DOES trump all of that.

Do you get this? Of all that we see and cringe at and grieve for and worry about and get depressed over, there is not anything about any of it that He does not promise to make right. And we are not only guaranteed to witness this, but are given the privilege of being asked to partner with Him and participate in bringing it to pass—all things will be made right.

There will be peace on earth.

Luke 1:52-53

He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted the lowly.  He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty (Luke 1:52-53). 

The angel told Zacharias that his son, the one who would ‘make ready a people prepared for the Lord’ would be called John which means, Jehovah has been gracious. And Mary was told by the angel to call her firstborn Jesus, which was to call Him Savior, Deliverer.

Redemption in Healing

This “redeeming of all things” has become so close to my heart as I have been healing.  It has been my Awakening.  Until I could see my own inner reality, I did not have eyes to see how truly desperate I am (and the whole world is) for Him. But I believe He desires to wake us up—all of His sons and daughters.  He wants to teach us how to see and hear with our ‘spirit eyes’ and ‘spirit ears’ this reality.

Matthew 13:15

But… their ears are hard of hearing and their eyes they have closed (Matthew 13:15). 

The invitation is that we would come to Him—and ask Lord, Give me eyes to see, give me ears to hear! Whatever that takes.  And the first thing he showed me, when I came to Him with this desire, was the condition of my own heart.

Luke 6:41

Once I started to read Luke this morning, I could not stop until I came to Luke 6:41, And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the plank in your own eye? 

We All Have Planks

Confession time.  I won’t go into detail, but lets just say… there was a time in my life when I was really good at ‘speck-ulating.’ I’m so ashamed! But it’s true. I literally wondered, “but what if I don’t have a plank in my eye?”  And therein lies the issue.  We all have planks.

Hello!! Planks vs. Specks is so perfect because no matter how “good” we think we are, or how many “sins we haven’t committed,” or even how genuinely mature we become, the size and weight of what God wants to reveal and address ABOUT ME TO ME vs. what He wants to reveal and address ABOUT YOU TO ME is of the same proportion as Plank vs. Speck.

The point is, we all have PLENTY of our own issues that needs addressing. So, most of us are walking around with a big ol’ plank in our eye. And don’t even know it.  And we want to help others and teach others and lead others.

The Issues of the Heart

The problem with that is that it’s hard to see anything or even function well at all with a plank in my eye.  Jesus said, first remove the plank from your own eye. Take the time to figure out your own *stuff*. He wants to deal with the plank, but do we? We can spend a lifetime keeping ourselves busy debating, escaping, performing, avoiding, doing good deeds, or “serving” Him.  But to partner with Him in delving into the issues of the heart…this takes great courage.  And true humility. It is worth it.

Redemption: Healing and Change for Others

And then He says you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother’s eye. And this is the most wonderful part of it all.  God redeems all of our brokenness.  His healing and changing me will bear fruit of healing and change for many others.  Friends, families, generations.  It spreads.

As He perfects His Love inside of me, I can become a part of someone else’s healing.  And they can become a part of someone else’s healing. And maybe God will redeem the whole earth one heart at a time.