The Joy of a Garden

I am not an avid gardener.

I know people who live and breathe plants. They know flower varieties by sight, the best things to plant in their growing zone, which vegetables prefer which soil, research and read, begin preparation months before the planting. They are true plant people. And I respect them and their acquired wisdom on all things green.

I am more of a flower gardener than a food gardener. I love the beauty of bursting blooms more than the practicality of growing useful food. But even then, I base what I grow on looks, ease of planting and upkeep, and if it’s an annual or perennial. These are my determining factors in what I will spend my time growing.

For example. after reading Floret Flowers book on dahlias, I was in love…until I tried growing them. The few tubers I put in that spring did fabulous; they produced huge, gorgeous blooms. But in my zone, it was recommended that I dig up the tubers and store them, covered in dirt, in a place that wouldn’t reach freezing or in a fridge. Then in the spring, I would need to replant the tubers, hoping they didn’t rot over the winter, and restart the process in the fall. Dahlias suddenly became the divas of my garden.

I gave it a try, carefully digging up the tubers, reading how deep and what kind of pot to keep them happy in over winter, storing them in my garage, and crossing my fingers for spring. None of them made it. That spring, I retrieved my precious tubers to find them shriveled. I planted them with wishful thinking but of course nothing happened. No beautiful blooms. All my efforts were wasted.

I made the decision to not try again, which some may think is giving up too soon, but I figured there were plenty of other flowers to set my attention to. Cosmos and zinnias were my next efforts. I once again was extremely pleased with the beauty and abundance of the seeds I scattered that quickly took root and sprouted. I was even more pleased the next year when cosmos shot up on their own, no effort from me required.

You see, as much as I love gardening, I love low maintenance gardening. The bursts of color, the unique petals and blooms, the joy of watching plants sprout higher, higher, and then budding and flourishing. I love it. But not enough to plant diva dahlias and pour time and money into flowers that don’t appreciate the effort. {I kid, but you get the point.}

Whatever type of gardener you are — flower, vegetable, high maintenance, low maintenance, the enjoy other people’s gardens gardener — I hope you spend time marveling at creation. I can’t walk outside and see a flower without noting the variations God put in place. Even within a flower “kind” like roses; so many colors, petal types, even the smells differ. I may be a low maintenance, keep it simple gardener, but I still enjoy the beauty God has made and the small part I can take in cultivating some of that beauty.

Consider these words from Psalm 8:

1 O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.

2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet,

7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,

8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

9 O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Photo by Amber Malquist on Unsplash

Life Lessons in a Journal

I’m a fan of journaling.

I love buying them, receiving them as gifts, using them.

I write in them about my life, my memories, my fears and desires, my frustrations and my thankfulness. I brainstorm and outline and connect thoughts and put together fragments.

Journals are all over my office, stacked on shelves and bookcases and in bins in a closet and under beds. I might be a little obsessed.

I started journaling when I was 10 years old with a diary that had a lock and a small set of keys. I didn’t have a lot going on in my life but I wrote about my cat dying, school work, vacations, summer fun, and lots of “Today was great. The End.” type entries.

When we moved, journaling was how I documented my sadness and frustrations and new friendships and starting school and hating biology.

My mom encouraged me to keep a journal whenever I traveled so I could write about the culture and adventures and what I saw and experienced. And I’m so glad she did. Through various missions trips and school trips and family travels, I would take a different journal and try to write in it at the end of each day. I was recently reading over some of those and of all the things I remember about those trips, there is so much I forgot. But thanks to my journaling practice, I can relive those forgotten moments again.

Through getting married and starting jobs and moving and becoming a mom I’ve kept journals — not as regularly written in but still precious — and it’s a habit I continue to foster.

The thing about journals is what you record in that moment in what you are feeling, thinking, experiencing. And over years of documenting these things, you can look back at the person you were and marvel at who you are now. Sometimes we change for the better, other times we see ourselves still struggling with the same sins and issues. But we see a picture of who we once were, maybe in a way that we’ve forgotten.

When I look back on certain periods of my journal writing, I notice I only had complaints to write about. I didn’t do this well, someone else got the award, a trip was canceled. I find it hard to believe that for weeks on end nothing good or happy happened to me as a teen-ager. But that’s all my 16 year old self wrote about. But I’ve noticed that — while sometimes sad and discouraging and hard things still happen to me — my more recent entries are focused on gratitude and thankfulness. Maybe it’s my older self realizing that optimism is more enjoyable and things that used to ruin my day aren’t that big of a deal.

I encourage people to journal, even if you don’t enjoy writing, because it’s a interesting lens to see yourself through. No one else has read my journals. I’m not keeping them on the off chance I need material for my autobiography. I’m keeping them to see God’s grace in my life. How experiences and trials have shaped and grown me. How relationships have stretched and challenged and molded me. The things I’ve learned in life and my Bible reading, the prayers lifted and answered.

It’s a habit I plan to continue. I still have empty journals to fill. And I still have lessons to learn and remember.

Photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash

The Idols We Create

This last weekend, Tommy canceled our Netflix subscription.

It was something we had talked about and debated off and on for awhile. We grew increasingly frustrated that we would sit down to watch something and then scroll through hundreds of options but find nothing we wanted to watch! And often when we would start a program that looked interesting, we would turn it off soon after because of vulgar language and inappropriate content.

Whenever we talked about canceling I would think, “But Netflix is something we’ve had so long.” But finally the day came when it didn’t matter how long we’d subscribed, how much our kids liked certain programs available on it. It just wasn’t worth it anymore.

When I woke up on Monday and Tommy told me he had canceled, I didn’t feel the disappointment I had anticipated. I was relieved in a way. We had weighed the pros and cons, talked about why this was an important decision for our family, and stuck with it.

But it did make me consider something rather ugly in myself: had Netflix been an idol for me? I didn’t feel like I had worshipped the streaming service or given it too much of my life. But the very fact that I had made excuses to myself for why we still needed to subscribe left a bad taste in my mouth.

I knew a lot of the programs were nasty.

I knew we watched maybe 8% of the content available because the rest wasn’t worth watching.

But still, there was that tug on me that “we’d always had this so shouldn’t we just keep doing it?”

You see, when we first got Netflix 12 years ago, we went through a whole list of why we wanted to spend money on this new streaming thing. For one, being in ministry, we found ourselves at the church five out of seven nights a week. So when we wanted to sit and watch something together {at dinner or 10pm}, there was nothing on regular TV. We didn’t have a DVR but we could get Netflix through the Xbox. We could also get DVDs in the mail a few times a month for the rare Friday night we were home. In short, it fit our budget and stage of life {no kids yet} and it had things we wanted to watch like older TV shows and movies.

As time went on, it was just something we had. With kids, it was easier to have TV “on demand” than waiting for PBS to run a kids show. It wasn’t until Netflix began producing so many of their originals that the quality really went down and we started debating if it was worth our money. But again, we’d always had it! Our ministry schedule was still crazy and it was nice to know we could watch when we wanted.

But 2020 has proven many things, and not just about Netflix. It’s showed what we are depending on, what matters most to us, what we are willing to deal with because “the world is just that way.” But we decided no. It was not worth it for our family — for the handful of shows we watch over and over — to continue supporting Netflix seeing for ourselves the things and materials they are promoting.

I’m sure some people reading this will wonder what took us so long, others will think we’re overreacting. I’m not writing this to persuade you to cancel Netflix. I’m not trying to make you feel guilty for subscribing or put my family on a pedestal for taking this action.

I’m asking you to think. To look at your life and be completely honest…is there something — maybe something “you’ve always done” — that is taking a place in your life it shouldn’t?

Like I said, at first I didn’t really consider Netflix an idol in my life because I wasn’t spending hours a day watching, it didn’t control my life, I didn’t make decisions based on Netflix. But if I was bored, I would scroll the categories to add things to my watch list. It was always there if I needed a distraction for myself or the kids. I started justifying why we needed it. I used excuses like “We won’t be able to watch this” or “I’ll miss out on that.” But really in defending it, I was showing how it had taken a place in my life I didn’t even realize. And I saw the same thing in my kids, as they asked to get on Netflix every afternoon.

Idols can be anything we put in our affections above God:

• If we consistently choose to read the news over reading the Bible, we have made news an idol.

• If we place being popular at work over being a testimony for Christ, we have made popularity an idol.

• If we choose scrolling social media over prayer, we have made social media an idol.

There are multitudes of examples and often as our stage of life changes, so too do our idols. We must be consistently looking at our lives, how we spend our time, what our “must haves” are, and evaluate the place we give them compared with God. I close with a few verses that have been encouraging and convicting to me lately.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. — I Cor. 15:10

So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm. — Joel 2:13

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. — Rom. 12:1-3

Photo by Mollie Sivaram on Unsplash