FIRMLY PLANTED â—½ ENCOURAGEMENT
Embrace
by Dina Cavazos
You may have read my article “Hurting Hearts” last month. It was a serious topic and felt heavy in the writing of it. Heavy isn’t generally popular--light, fun, and happy feel so much better; but there is a time for both. This sequel should be a little “lighter,” and maybe you’ll find it helpful and hopeful.
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Winter isn’t my season. Despite a mild one with unseasonably warm weather, the few days below freezing put my perennials into their winter pajamas, not to be removed until danger of frost is past. Their brown dead garb provides protection for pollinators, and for the roots; they stand guard ingloriously. The patio is a mess: tables moved against the house as a sheltered spot for potted plants, chairs out of place, constant leaf litter, and the stock tank pool sports an ugly makeshift cover. Besides all that, the shorter days throw my preferred schedule completely off. For some reason, I sleep more than usual, taking naps even though I’ve had enough sleep. I feel like I’m part chicken, roosting when it gets dark, and part bear, inclined to hibernate the winter away.
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But finally…ahh…spring. Removing winter pajamas is done, and new green growth is sprouting out with silent shouts of praise. The final wave of fallen leaves is mostly bagged up or chopped and spread as mulch. The pool is cleaned and ready for a summer soak, looking much more attractive and enticing. It still needs a cover to keep debris out of it, but it’s not unsightly. The days are longer and I’m busy doing the garden tasks I love. The seasonal rotation and pattern go round and round, and each year I learn to embrace it, the good and the bad, a little more.
It used to bother me—the incessant leaves, or twigs, or acorns, falling and making a mess everywhere; a grey-brown landscape instead of green; a covered pool instead of one that shows off shimmering water at all times; plants that don’t stay where planted, or die; rock beds that continuously sprout weeds. I was disappointed that my thoughtfully executed garden plans failed, overwhelmed with the constant clean up, and longed for the impossible perfect Pinterest-worthy garden. That is a set-up for frustration and discontent.
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But, somewhere along the way, I began to let go. Somewhere along the way, transformation happened. Not externally in the garden, but internally in my heart. I began to make peace with things not looking as I envisioned, with repeating the same chores over and over, with learning what works and what doesn’t by trial and error. Somewhere along the way, I began to accept the cycles of messiness, the cycle of nature. Trees drop leaves along with providing shade; weeds thrive beside healthy plants; heat, freezes and drought take their turn with beautiful days. It’s a metaphor for Life and a lesson I seem to learn over and over, through circumstances, through gardening.
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I recall difficult times, heartaches, regrets. Pressed toward God, I came face to face with questions that matter: is God Lord of my life, come what may? Is God really good? Can I trust him? Do I want to be formed into the image of Christ? Conclusions: “yes, yes, yes, and yes.” If I trust God and have given him my life, then I must believe and trust that he is doing just that—that he brings and/or allows things to come my way. Somewhere I read that we should “welcome trials as friends.” That hit a chord. Not easily or consistently, but as a response to those hard questions, I decided to surrender and embrace my circumstances. Ouch.
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In the same way, I’m learning to be at peace with the circumstances in my garden—the mess, the clean-up, the lessons of failure and mistakes, the reward of beauty, the repeating cycles…these are my friends, this is Life with God, and I embrace it.