After two full days single-handedly shoveling manure, hauling it to the garden, unloading it, transplanting fifty-some plants and watering said plants, I have a new appreciation for farming. The garden and I – well, we’re related only by marriage. Gardening is my dear husband’s gift, not mine. I love a beautiful garden, but it is a beauty I savor sitting on the porch with a glass of lemonade.
This weekend my B was occupied with other things (for me) so he asked me to “plant his plants.” Oh, the things we do for love! I warily agreed. Not because I’m afraid of physical labor or bugs and even the occasional snake (yes, I caught one). It’s because I’ve been known to kill other things that are precious to him. Like fish. Lots and lots of prized fish. (That’s another story.) Since he knows my history, and he still trusts me (and loves me) I figured it was the least I could do.
I have to admit, gardening is great spiritual exercise. Not only do I get to pray without ceasing that I not kill his plants by some agricultural mishap, I’m reminded of the spiritual truths about reaping and sowing. I spent a considerable amount of time thinking and praying for loved ones, for myself, situations, and for any random thing as it came to mind. Despite the heat and the hard labor, I felt refreshed in my spirit.
Then I walked into my house. (Cue screeching brake sounds.)
Can you imagine what a house looks like after two whole summer days with four children, a new pool, muddy yard, a big dog, grimy husband and no housekeeper? Muddy footprints through the house, dishes E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E, dirty laundry across every piece of furniture, board game pieces in piles, “CRAFTS”….you get my drift. My children are in training to pick up after themselves, but clearly, they haven’t been trained completely without me nagging reminding them hourly to do their chores. It seemed like I needed two of me: one for the inside and one for the outside.
While I paced around taking deep breaths, my thoughts went to my father-in-law, who grew up in Lancaster, PA, a farming town. He’s told me stories of how everyday life stopped in planting and harvesting seasons. School stopped, housekeeping stopped, businesses closed – all for the sake of sowing and reaping. The community was of one-mind, working toward the same goal and helping neighbors when needed. When the last row was planted, prayers for rain and good growing weather were the main conversations around every table. Daily vigils of weather checks, fertilizers and pest removal continued as life returned to routinely comfortable but watchful patterns during the growing season. Anticipation of the harvest to come settled into everyone’s psyche. In these communities, stopping the routine and working diligently in season was honorable and ordinary all at the same time.
Isn’t young motherhood similar to this? We’re in the season of life where we are sowing, sowing, sowing into the lives of our children. We are weeding, tilling, watering, protecting, transplanting. But make no mistake: God is the master-gardener in our little plots of earth. “So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.” (1 Cor. 3:7) As mothers, we are to tend to our child-gardens with all diligence. So guess what? Other things stop, at least temporarily. Tending to the hearts of our children sometimes mean dirty floors, piles of laundry, stacked dishes. Sometimes it means cereal for dinner and tangled hair. It means smoothing out wrinkles of the T-ball uniform unwashed from the week before. All honorable. All ordinary. Sowing righteousness in children and having a God-fearing home takes time, energy and often leaves messes in its wake. Godly parenting is a messy business because we are tilling into messy, fallow hearts.
Our culture has devalued the time and energy it takes to raise children. Instead, it judges a mother’s value on “having it all [done.]” The lie that I can “do it all” in and of itself is an evidence of this thinking. It is found in the root of discontentment. It was evident in my anger as I walked into my home and found it in disarray. It is in my tone when I complain to my children about their clutter around the house. It is there when I express weariness of another lost shoe, game piece, and forgotten chore. I place way too many expectations on myself (and them) to “get it all done” when my primary responsibility in this season is to tend to my fledgling tender sprouts in the garden of my home.
It is sowing season in our home, so excuse our mess. The season is only here for a time. For me, it’s the time to stop every other subtle expectation and put first what needs to be first. I am returning to the ordinary and the honorable life of raising children. “Sow righteousness for yourselves, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers his righteousness on you.” (Hosea 10:12)
Now A Mirror Dimly 