The Gardener

I was in transition. I wasn't in a good head space. I was moving from one apartment to another. And I wanted something to add a soft touch to my home. Some people get pets. I get plants. 

When I moved into my current apartment, just under two years ago, I purchased a few plants. Since I had proved to have a bit of a black thumb previously, a few different types of plant were what I ended up with. My thought was maybe with multiple plants, if one died then I had others to make thrive (or my apartment would become a plant grave). At Ikea I found two desert-type leafy plants for 50 cents each. They were almost dead already, which was going to be my excuse if they really died. I picked up a rubber tree and another vine-type plant at Home Depot. And a my mother gave me a plant that she nearly killed herself. I got them home and I arranged them in spots where they'd get the light that was appropriate and I then I got to searching for how I was supposed to care for them.

Two years later they are all still around. These plants take time I've learned. But time that I honestly love spending on them! The routine of caring for them became something I looked forward to every Saturday morning. I'd search each one for dead leaves which I'd carefully remove. I would turn them so there was equal time facing the sun. I've re-potted them once. And when I saw little webs appearing on them, I freaked out. What was on the plants and was it going to damage them? Immediately I found how to eliminate this problem and they're all good now. I can't tell you  how happy I am when I see a new leaves budding up through the soil or a new stem growing out of a branch.

Last summer when I was out of town for two weeks I brought the plants to my parents house. Living in the desert, the summers become extremely hot, and for the duration I was gone I was shutting off the AC in my apartment. I didn't want to leave the plants in the heat with no water for that long. But even the transition from my place to theirs and back again, almost killed a few of the plants. It was a shock to them. So much change in such a little amount of time. All the more diligent I needed to be in caring for them.


But I'm sure you're wondering what point I'm making. Bear with me. I'm getting there.

In seeing these plants grow I've noticed a few things:
1. They grow when they have nourishment required from me.
2. New growth in the plants, well frankly, happens in the most obscure and unbelievable places.
3. Sometimes you have to cut away the bad things to make the rest of the plant survive.
4. Seeing new growth is AMAZING!

In selling many of my things lately, there has been a shift of everything in my apartment. Everything is in different locations. These plants are normally in one place, near my front window, but on one particular morning they were across the room to my kitchen table. As I was sitting and reading my Bible at the table the plants were a distraction. They needed tending. Ignoring the urge to grab the watering can I continued reading. Funny how it works, but I couldn't help but notice the connection that I was reading out of John 15.

¹ “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes^[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. ³ You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴ Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
   ⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷ If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

   ⁹ “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. ¹⁷ This is my command: Love each other.

It struck me- as I have grown to love and care for these plants, I've seen a connection to how God cares for us.I get the analogy. He chose each of us as I chose the plants I brought into my home. He nourishes our soul when we can't do it ourselves.

But this is the hard part - I get the cutting back the bad to allow for the good to grow new. But it's not always pleasant. And being completely transparent with you. I think it sucks. On this side, where I am at now, where I see trimming and cutting happening in my life, I want to yell and get mad and run sometimes. But then I see a little bit of the treasure God has promised to me, to all of us. His promises are that if we remain in Him, if we stay with him and not run away, then his love will always be there. If we stay with him, we will grow. If we stay true to him, our lives will change.

God's is cutting out the unhealthy things in my life. And let me tell you it is a lot. A lot. A lot. I have a clear understanding how unhealthy a few thing are that He's taking away. But somethings right now are leaving me asking why? I don't see why they are bad. But God knows.

And in place of the unhealthy, the healthy will have a place to grow. Out of a stem that looks like the most unlikely place, there will be a leaf that will grow. And the pleasure I see in tending my plants can never be compared to how much more God rejoices.