I was sitting out in the backyard trying to write; it’s been a real struggle (more on that later). Perhaps you have noticed the lack of blog posts? My backyard is cute, although a little on the unkempt side, but with a small tree growing in the middle of the patio and built-in benches, it has great potential. If someone was more inclined, it could be quite lovely, but I have let it go pretty wild. That is until my son listened to the audio version of The Secret Garden six times in a row (I’m not even exaggerating), so now, naturally, he is all into gardening. I’m more of the let your yard go natural (or wilding) as I like to call it; spell check, however, does not agree that this is a thing.

Thanks to The Secret Garden (which I wish had stayed more of a secret) my son, in cahoots with my mother, is trying to tame our outside space. All on his own, he started weeding and watering “things” in the backyard. My mother was completely impressed with his initiative and promised to come over with a car full of actual plants. I have lost track of all the new additions: six potted plants (in teal to match my doors), ground cover and ferns galore. We (I have helped) have tilled, dug, planted and watered. How much work it is to get things back into order! My backyard, like my heart, wants to run wild.

Entropy (also known as the second law of thermodynamics) is what happens when we do nothing. Order runs to disorder. This is clearly evident in my backyard. When we moved in eight years ago the garden was lovely. Colorful flowers in oranges and purples broke up the lush greens, Hostas ran along the fence and the rocks were all in their proper places next to the house. It was picture perfect. And each spring I did mostly nothing and incidentally, each spring less flowers appeared. Over time the hostas completely died out! I blame the dog. Holes started appearing in my once flawless lawn (for which I also blame the dog). Weeds grew as big as small bushes (I somehow want to also blame this on the dog.)

In short, doing nothing resulted in our cute, cultivated landscaping going back to its natural state. Wild! Slowly at first. All the hard work someone had done held up for a few years, but eventually and almost completely, it fell into decline. I think one flower came up this year (until my dog laid on it, for clearly this was the best place in all of the yard to lay). This makes me think of the state of my spiritual life. I have spent seasons doing the ground work. Breaking up the hard rocky earth of my heart. Digging out lies that I started to believe in my rebellious and young adulthood. Daily watering seeds of truth and being rewarded with flowers and eventually fruit. Painful but necessary pruning of my once held beliefs about God were plucked out as I spent time in the Bible. More growth and more increase as long as I put the work in.

But then there would be dry seasons.

Times where I’m paying more attention to the world than reading my Bible.

I’m complaining more than praying.

Fears would start to sprout around the good fruit of my faith. I would complain and worry more than I would pray. Irritating, prickly thistles make themselves right at home among carefully cultivated flowers of peace and patience. Unlike weeds which seems to pop up without any help, the fruits of the spirit are hard won. I do not naturally go towards love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and self control (Gal 5:22). I have to get dirty, break a sweat and carefully water these plants almost daily in hopes of a yield. Yet, it just takes one stressful day at work, a differing of opinions or my check engine light coming on and weeds start sprouting up all over the place. I don’t have time for this and pop there is a thorn trying to choke out one of my fruits of the spirit. This is too much work, I’m sick of trying.

I have struggled to write these last few months. I have thought, what is the point? Have you struggled to parent? Work? Clean? Even care? Did you, like me, take in more of the world than the Word? A root of hopelessness took hold, slowly at first but then it gained ground and started to cut off my vine of joy and then my peace and slowly all my fruit started to have spots and then worms. I no longer had fresh, sweet fruit from which to eat to sustain my faith. I was instead chewing on weeds, which are bitter and empty of nutrients. My writing dried up.

Earlier this week, I told my son he should water his plants. He got out the hose and started making his way around the yard. As he turned the corner on the house to soak the ferns, the hose got stuck. I was working on the patio and I watched him start to struggle. He was pulling and pulling on the hose and it was getting more and more stuck. Instead of going back to see what the trouble was he had wrapped himself up in the hose to get more leverage and pulled with all his body weight. I yelled to him to stop! “It’s only going to get worse if you keep pulling”, I told him. “You have to go back and see where you got hung up.” From my vantage point, I could see that the hose was stuck on his bike, which was getting pulled into the wagon and was about to topple over one of the yard games. The more he pulled on it the more damage ensued.

I was instantly annoyed, but quickly saw the analogy. When something gets stuck in my faith, I want to just pull at it, hoping it will pop free. I don’t want to walk back to the other side of the house and see what is going on. As I became fearful, depressed and irritated over the last few months, I wanted to just pull free of these feelings. I didn’t want to examine why I was feeling these things on such a deep level. Sure our emotions get stuck on things—that child that won’t listen, a fight with our spouse, the car won’t start, the check didn’t come. But the deeper things, the hopelessness, the oppression that won’t let up; that’s when my thought life becomes tangled up in something solid. It is caught on a bike and a wagon and unless we go back and untangle it, the knots will only get tighter until eventually the water supply is cut off.

It was planted in a good soil by great waters, that it might bring forth branches, and that it might bear fruit, that it might be a goodly vine.

Ezekiel 17:8

Good plants need water and if the watering hose is caught in my doubt and disbelief, they will shrivel up and die. I often struggle with where God is in my pain. I find myself wondering if He cares. Does He see what is happening? My weeds of fear and worry seem to need no tending. This is as old as the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve lived in a perfect backyard. Fruit aplenty, communion with God as easy as a walk on a shady trail. No stony ground, no bugs eating away at the berries, and they didn’t even need a watering can. Everything grew easily without effort.

Yet, when this first couple decided to eat of the forbidden fruit, their days of ease (and ours) were over. Their choice led to the great responsibility of knowing good and evil. We, today, walk in that garden; one that sprouts weeds and thorns more readily than fruit. Where communion with God is easily choked out by the cares of this world—the bikes and the wagons and all the stuff that gets in the way—the more we pull at it the more entangled we become.

My son had to walk back and carefully, thoughtfully figure out how to unhook the garden hose from his things. In the same way that I have to walk back in my thought life, in my actions and see where I got hung up.

Do I care about this world too much?

Was I making this my “forever home,” when in essence, I’m just passing through?

Did I start to think the here and now is what matters most?

My comforts and my happiness so often get tangled in my “things.” I need to look good, feel good, have nice things and enjoy life to be in a good spot. When ultimately, my faith should be sure no matter what my life looks like. In good times and in bad times, like the Apostle Paul says, my faith should remain constant. My emotions won’t of course, but my faith must be on solid rock, so the storms of life won’t toss it about.

He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defence; I shall not be greatly moved.

Psalm 62:2

What are my weeds of doubt and sorrow, but too much love for my life and my comforts? What is the worst that would happen? My way of life is threatened; my actual life is threatened? These are scary thoughts to my flesh, but they should not be to my spirit. My spirit is not made for this life. It is bound for the next—it is heaven-bound. No sickness or loss of freedom or devastation can take that from me.

We must work hard to keep our garden in order or it will quickly fall into entropy.

What does this look like for you?

For me it’s time spent alone with the Lord. Sitting in my garden in the morning before I start the day. I breathe Him in by reading the Word and and exhale His truth through my prayers.

I minister to others and let others minister to me. (I ask for others to cover me in prayer.)

I listen to teachings and ask to be lead by the Holy Spirit.

At times my flesh feels that these things are not enough, but my spirit longs for them, knowing they are the transforming of my soul.

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