Invisible Gardening

Buried in darkness, the germ of life waits in secret. So much potential packaged so tiny, lost in the loam, out of sight.

Under the heat lamp and the peat and the dark, the first finger of growth presses through membrane into the earth and tiny fibers take shape. Cells add themselves to each other feverishly, exploding quietly.

But above the lamp, I hover. I'm impatient. I see none of the growth below, and the dirt is just dirt, and I wait.

You might have noticed that I haven’t blogged. Normally, I’m not one to lack words, but the creativity seemed buried as well this Christmas. In many ways, my heart has been like a seed in one of my peat trays, growing invisibly, even to me. 

Most mornings I’ve had to take a deep breath, releasing my desire to perform and achieve and produce, trusting that even in the darkness, the Gardener was doing something good in me.

Out my back door lies a freshly dug hole, wide and shallow. My biceps ache, but I’m happy. In the hole rests a new wooden box I made, open to receive compost and the baby plants that now stretch green toward my desk lamp.

So much preparation, weeks in advance of any growth.

For the past few months, I have plugging away doggedly at the things I know are good for my heart. I’ve been reading a challenging book, asking myself the challenging questions, choosing to be vulnerable. And honestly, the lack of visible growth been frustrating.  I’m a more patient gardener than I am a garden, it seems.

But last night, a friend told me that I seemed less anxious and more trusting than I was in the fall. A tendril of green that I had overlooked!

Even when our hearts feel like bare dirt, He is good, and He is at work.