Gardening

Before I got married I had a dream that one day I'd live in a big house with a fabulous garden.  Roses, peonies, lilies, a meadow, possibly a stream and lots of nooks and crannies to sit and read.  The lot.  I imagined myself in a floaty summer dress (probably from Boden or some other such English institution) strolling through the garden at dusk with my wicker basket and scissors gently picking roses for a vast floral display which I'd artfully design similar to those featured in such heady publications as Country Living.

I married a man who is passionate about gardening.  One of the reasons we brought our current home is because we both loved the garden.  It is, by town standards, vast.  However his understanding of the verb 'to garden' and mine differ somewhat.  That is because his is rooted in Reality.

Within a week of moving in any thought of Boden, peonies and wicker baskets had vanished.  In their place were wellies (nope, not even pink), mud, rubbish piles, trips to the local Tip and basically Death.

You see much of gardening is about Death (stay with me, I've not lost it).  The garden we moved in to hadn't been properly gardened in years.  Which meant (she writes, eager to demonstrate her newly acquired Gardening Knowledge) that the soil lacked nutrients, the plants were stunted and there were A LOT of weeds.  Some of them even looked pretty.  But they were weeds nonetheless.  So we spent the first year digging up everything.  And I mean Everything.  There was many a time when I'd beg my husband, 'Oh please not that one!  Look at it's gorgeous purple flower!".  To which he'd reply, "Bekah, it's a thistle.  Get out of the way."

At the end of the first year our garden looked like.. well the term mud pit is probably too kind.  As I stared out at this barren wasteland I thought, "Ah well.  At least I can now get planting my flowers."

Nope.  Turns out that was Not A Good Idea.  "Vegetables!" cried my husband with a slightly terrifying gleam in his eye.  "We need vegetables!  Lots and lots.  They'll help break up the soil, return the nutrients and we can live off them too!  Can't say that about roses can you?"  For a man who hates shopping, he managed to spend an alarming amount of time and money at our local gardening centres.  And the result was a field of potatoes.  Different varieties, mind you, but potatoes nonetheless.  There's not too much beauty surrounding the common garden spud.  I'd like to say I got quite proficient at creating new and exciting dishes using our produce.  But that would be a lie.  Anyone visiting our house during that time left struggling under the weight of our excess vegetables.

Anyway, whilst this is all very therapeutic for me you might be wondering a) whether we actually have any flowers now and b) what this has got to do with... well, anything really.

Okay, a) we do now have flowers.  Lots.  And grass.  And a very small enclosed space for the odd vegetable.  But no potatoes.  If Sainsbury's is good enough for the rest of the population, it's good enough for me.  And every time I step out into our garden, my spirit soars.  And I've learnt so much that I'm now tackling our front garden All By Myself.  Yep, there's absolutely no planting going on.  Just lots of death and destruction.  For now.

b) which is partly what got me thinking.  Gardening is hard work.  I mean, I had no idea (clearly).  Roots go down deep.  And it takes a LONG TIME.  Digging, sifting, levelling... it's an investment.  The easier option would definitely be to leave it all alone.  But I have a vision for my garden.  Although it's overgrown I can see all it could be.

God is invested in us.  He sees all that we could be.  And he's not prepared to stop digging and uprooting and challenging and killing stuff in us until we're made more and more like Jesus and growing pretty awesome fruit in our lives (Galatians 5:22-23).

But when God's working on a particular part of our lives it can feel incredibly painful.  Stuff has to die.  We realise we're not as great as we thought we were.  The landscape can look barren and the timescale indefinite.  But if you're experiencing that, I want to encourage you.  God's not a random gardener and he doesn't get things wrong.  He's clearing the ground ready for something far more beautiful and life-giving and fruitful than you could ever imagine.