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Planting Beautiful Things






All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found

Could a garden come up from this ground at all


With all this writing on weeding and planting good and bad days, I figured it was time to put the metaphor into action. Good Friday seemed as good a time as any to bury a tiny seed into the damp earth in hopes of new life. 

Here are some images from my adventures in gardening while listening to Gungor's You Make Beautiful Things on repeat:




Life springs forth from one small seed, nourishing the body and sustaining the soul. 



I cheated and bought some starter spinach and tomato plants so I can eat salad right out of my front yard. 


As I transplanted the baby plants into their new home, I was struck by the empty tomb of their former containers--an emptiness that speaks the hope of growth and new life. 


A garden will come up from this ground. Our faith does not end on Friday, in the crucifixion and the rejection. Yes, it begins in the pain, in the bare earth, in the darkness, but it doesn't end there.  Today--Good Friday--I am humbled to serve an ever-creating God who makes beautiful things out of death sentences and empty tombs, out of dust and out of us. 

Thank you, Love. 

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A Time to Weed


I've planted too many bad days. The weeds of cynicism, disengagement, and discontent spring up, choke out. 

Yes, the field is teeming with flowers, but it’s also teeming with weeds. 

Sometimes I can’t tell the difference.

Cynicism shoots up around me, engulfing me.  It strangles the good days, the good seeds, the good hope. 

You won’t move. 
You aren’t there.
I am trapped trapped trapped. 

But I know that is my voice, not Yours.

Yours is the voice of hope, the voice of kindness.  Yours is the voice that said to me, 

“Relinquish cynicism and WATCH ME MOVE.”

My eyes are peeled. 

I pluck the weeds. I replace them with truth.

You will move.
You are there. 
I am free free free. 

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