God's Garden or if all else fails, the lemonade stand

I can't say it's ALL in, but as of this weekend, the garden will be entirely planted.  There are no words except to say, that is a miracle.  We had an entire room of seedlings that needed to be planted and we had so much bed prep to do, so much irrigation to set up, so many rows to mark off....we had no idea how it was going to happen.  On the Saturday and Sunday, RM and I would just look at each other with eyes that said, "What have we done?"  Then we would literally stop midday and try to deeply breathe as we were feeling growing levels of stress and, dare I say, panic.  Why panic?  Because this year, for the first time ever, we had paying customers who expect vegetables when you say you are going to deliver vegetables.

I sent out a distress text asking for prayer to family members and a couple of close friends.  That day was awesome.  Everything was going smoothly.  I kept making vine balls as that was all I could do that day.  RM was the one driving the tractor, etc.  It was a great day.  It was the next day that we started bringing the transplants over that it started to sink in all that we had to do.  It was around 12 or 2 when we saw we had only planted a few rows that we were getting worried.  I sent out another text asking for prayer!

The older girls and I were in the garden when they started to touch on all my insecurities unknowingly.  "Why do we do things like this all the time?"  "Why can't we just grow a garden like normal people?"  "Why can't we just do ONE thing instead of a whole bunch of things all at once?"  And on and on, they went....These are all REALLY GOOD questions!!  I ask them myself!!  I think we were all feeling overwhelmed....but then the miracles started to happen....as they always do......

One at a time, friends of the kids started to arrive.  And suddenly I saw how our garden, as overwhelming as it was, was becoming the most amazing way to have people over, to interact with unbelieving kids, to give all of them purpose for living.  I would hand them flat after flat of vegetables and each row would get planted in minutes instead of the hours it would have taken me on my own.  I looked at the place I had set down the hundreds of transplants and as the door wore on, the place was eventually empty!  I couldn't believe it!

There were so many great conversations as one of these kids has been evangelized to by our family for years now.  Our garden rests at the top of a hill where the sun sets.  It is an amazing view as the sun goes down each night.  He stood there, as it was literally nearly 8:30 pm, and said, "I don't know why I don't believe in God when I see how beautiful it is here!  How amazing creation is!"  WHAT?!  That led into an incredible conversation where he and the kids and another Christian girl who had come over sat around the fire later on and once again he was preached to about his need for the Lord.  

So many of my kids' friends come from one child families.  When they arrive at our farm, there are people EVERYWHERE.  My house is loud, messy, and totally not what they are used to, but I think they enjoy it and so we support them coming over.  We keep praying for them as they are not believers YET.  How I pray that our garden, our home, our family will be a place of healing, love and industry for people like that. 

As each friend came over and as each person planted a plant or irrigated a bed, suddenly it became fun.  Suddenly my kids stopped asking us why we do what we do and instead were so glad that we do these crazy things.  I think they suddenly stopped questioning and instead realized what I had realized earlier that weekend that we were standing on holy ground and that God was at work THROUGH THE GARDEN.

One friend sent me an encouraging text with a verse from Genesis.  It reminded me that God's first home and first job for Adam was a GARDEN!!!  How amazing is that?!  So I read the verses to the kids yesterday.  I nearly fell over...

"When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up - for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground...."

Ok, that verse alone is amazing....."no small plant of the field"?  I bet that could be translated "transplant" or "seedling"!  And then it says, "sprung up".  I told the kids that even the expression "sprung up" is such a great picture of a plant springing up out of the ground quickly, immediately....how we long for that!  But, as the verse goes on it says "the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land...."  That says it all - the Lord God is the Gardener.  He is the one who causes plants to spring up.  He is the one who waters.  He is the one who determines when this all will happen.  And, He needs us as assistant gardeners.  He needed a man to "work the ground".  How can that be when work is equated with curses?  Because work ISN'T a curse!  Work is good!  Being in a garden, working in a garden is literally Paradise!  The curse that comes later is that" thistles and thorns is shall bring forth for you", "in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life", "by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread"....oh how true all of that is.....

However, at that time, pre-sin, gardening was awesome.  Verse 8 of chapter 2 says this, "And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.."  I love this verse!  God planted a garden.  Then He puts man there.  First home.  A garden.  How fantastic.  "And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food."  I didn't know what to pray before, now I do.  "Lord, please make every tree/seedling/transplant/seed to spring up!  May our vegetables be pleasant to the sight and GOOD FOR FOOD!!!!"  When you read that verse it is such a good reminder that we DO NOTHING to cause the vegetables to grow.  We think we are the ones who planted, but we aren't.  God even formed us, so we can't take credit for even the planting.  Nope.  We think we set up irrigation, but we didn't.  God created water to come up from under the earth!  From our well!  Who thinks up these things?!  We think we designed a really cool (and expensive) irrigation system, but we didn't.  RM has a brain that is incredible, but also given to him by God.  We think that we planted this garden, but no God planted it.  The Bible nailed it.  He put Adam there and He put us here.  

"The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it."  Not as punishment.  No curse yet.  Working and keeping a garden would have been fun!  A blessing!  A joy!  Is that why we all started to kind of enjoy the weekend as it went on?  It went from being stressful to amazing.  It went from wondering why we were doing this to now we know why we are doing this...gardening is a reflection of Paradise!  But....we aren't supposed to do it alone.  Adam was lonely.  He needed a helper....All throughout the weekend I thought to myself, "This is nuts.  I could NEVER do this by myself without RM helping me."  I even thought to myself, "He doesn't need me.  If I weren't here, he'd be fine without me."  But then, all throughout the weekend he would say to me, "I couldn't do this without you.  If you weren't a part of this, I would never have taken this on."  And it's not because I can drive a tractor, which I can, but not the way he does.  And it's not because I am good at organizing, because I'm not.  It's more because I share the vision.  I am his greatest encourager.  I'm all in because I see the bigger picture and so does he.  So in that sense, I am definitely his helpmeet and he needs me because I am right there beside him as he tackles the things I cannot do.  Straight from Scripture again.  The pattern is right in Genesis.

Later even though they sin, I still love the verse that says, "God walked through the garden in the cool of the day...."  Ok, he was looking for them, but He walked through the garden...it sounds pleasant, beautiful, soothing.  We love doing that.  We have chairs set up and after we walk through the garden in the cool of the day, we then sit and watch the sunset together most nights.  It's so wonderful.

To top it all off, I believe we were also spared a couple tragedies.  My 9 year had quite the bike spill and got a scraped elbow and leg.  But he's completely fine and has learned a good biking lesson.  My 12 year old was playing basketball and turned away from the net to go get the ball when suddenly the huge, heavy, tall net came crashing down.  In the years of being outside, the base had corroded and in that moment decided to break.  We would never have seen that coming.  It missed her by just a few feet.  If she hadn't moved out of the way to get the ball it would have either killed her or very badly hurt her.  I was right there when it happened and my breath was taken away.  We were spared and I knew it.  I thanked God over and over for His protection on her and for sparing us.

All weekend long the weather cooperated, too.  The machinery cooperated.  We didn't take that lightly either.  We knew that was a gift from God as well.

I could go on and on, but I have to go back to the clinic still.  It has been determined I have had an infection and am now on antibiotics for it.  Hopefully will heal fast.....

One last thing....if our garden fails, there is always the lemonade stand.  Our younger kids had it going all weekend and they made a small killing yet again.  I'm telling you, we are in the wrong busines....