Growing faith during storms

Have you ever bought plants at a garden center or put seeds in the ground? It is easy enough to do, and the excitement of growing is contagious.  As we work on our garden this week, we are planting more above-ground beds and working on transplanting the seedlings we started a few weeks ago inside.

Faith is easier to see when you plant a seed. For many weeks you do not see anything, but then a shoot comes up and transforms the seed to a plant with roots.  As the sun is shining, the nutrition allows roots to grow and the plant to grow strong. It is a satisfactory thing to watch how even in the dark soil the

light finds a way to grow us.

Faith is that way…It’s bright and shiny when you first decide to believe that God is bigger than whatever you’re facing. But as you plant that faith it takes seeing what isn’t there yet. What cannot be there yet. For just as the seed must lose itself to the explosion of new life, walking out faith means leaving so many old paths behind.

It feels safer in the seed. But as we all know, seeds are tiny compared to what God’s plan for their lives can do with them.

This week our family has been planting the garden and seeds of faith as we face a health crisis of one of our beloveds.  Unexpected hardships have come. Trials that shake our very souls. We watch locally as our garden has faced 40 mph winds this week. Our souls feel the same as we face our beloveds trials. We’ve had to see past the darkness that the seed also faces looking towards the light of God.

What I know is that over-tending where there is new growth makes them weak, and I know that over-stressing our hearts does the same.  Plants grow roots as they mature and I am focusing on stretching into my roots to know that God’s promises are real. His ways are not my ways, and his presence, just like the sun, the roots, and the growth that is happening in my garden….is still present.

Gardening is a new thing to me, in fact I’ve always been a great starter of seeds in people and gardens. It has been only in the last few years has it been my goal to grow things at home.

Before I was with my students who would start in January to work through their summer plants with us in class.  We took them from seed to 9-11″ plants as the school year ended. Often my own plants went to a new student who didn’t have the experience of being with us from January.

This week my gardens have comforted me as I transplanted some baby vegetables and flowers. As I gently removed them from their containers I could see the tiny roots that had taken place in the darkness of rich soil. I could see the remains of seeds, burst in the growth of the seed doing what it was meant to do…

to become…

and I am reminded in the beautiful blooms of the flowering vegetables and hydrangeas, that though they looked barren and sad a few weeks ago, they have done the work of growing, and are beautiful in their growth. I know other seedlings could not grow and diminished…

I hope I can be the seed that flourishes as I grow into the steadfastness of God just as this scene flourished after the storm… it’s roots grown deeper by the harsh winds, its life heartier for having weathered the storm.