How does your Garden Grow?

This is just one way of seeing Me.

A representation of my life when I allow myself to be what I was created to be.

Though a bulb is so small, it contains that same mysterious life principle which produces growth in the grandest tulip.

When the bulb is cast into the ground, the tiny bulb lays hold of every element that God has provided for it's nutriment, and it speedily develops a sturdy growth. Even a bulb has faith. It trusts the elements and is utterly surrendered to them. If the word produces life, like the the earth produces life, then I have no other choice than to be in it.

There I find I'm complete. There I become what I was created to be.

The Dream

There’s something about surrender that I still fumble around with and can’t get right: What is it about letting go that we all struggle with? When you are born you are forced into a life of total dependency. If you grow up in a fairly good home then for the next 15 to 20 years you live a life that is somewhat sheltered from the real realities of life. You have ’something’ to fall back on like, of course, your family (note that I am simply generalising here). I don’t know when it hit you, but the ‘real’ realities began to strike me like a set of waves around the age of 22 and they haven’t stopped since. As I wrestled with myself and with God I found it easy to say that I trusted; easy to say that I had some sort of faith, but my actions said otherwise. I remember that for about a year I lived with a physical pain in my chest that would rise and fall in severity according to my worries and hurting (I certainly don’t say this to arise in you some pity for me. I say this so you can see how easily the mind can effect even the body but most importantly how the mind and body can effect the spirit as it’s the part of us that connects to His spirit) It was then that I began to realize that maybe, just maybe, all that I had set hopes on were nothing but a vapor, a fantasy. What I used to anticipate with great excitement was slowly turning into a big joke. During this time there was nothing and no-one that I could fall back on. Hearing my pastor preach on beautiful truths only went so far, the comfort of my parents and family only went so deep, but my heart was not healed. In all of this the most horrid thing that could have happened, the most regretful thing I wish I had done different because it would have saved me many tears, was to question and put the blame on God Himself. I thought that what I asked for in my prayers was something He would naturally give because they were ‘good’. In my mind I reasoned: if God is good then good things will come to His children. And once again, although this is true, you and I both know that the good we want does not always turn out ‘good’, does it? What had I done to now be walking alone with no plan for my life, not even dreams? Where was the God that provided a path of security, a path of purpose? I took it even further and questioned his very existence because I reasoned that if He could not control Goodness or Goodwill toward man that maybe He wasn’t in control at all. Maybe this ‘god’ idea was merely a way to make ourselves feel better about a rotten situation. Such were the thoughts of a girl whose heart was torn by a now dreamless life but could not throw questions at God and not have Him answer them (in a strange way). I know He’s there. Otherwise how would I recognize goodness? He must be Good because those ‘waves’ that came upon me were thrown by Him. How does that make him good, you say? I certainly didn’t see this coming. But his answer was clear. It took me almost going under, feeling pain, wrestling and struggling with my faith to finally see what I was resting my entire life on: the dreams, the expectations, the picture I had painted of God, of myself and of this life. So, I felt much like Eustace who, tired of what he had set his hopes on, was ready for Aslan to cut through his scaly dragon skin and find the little boy at the core. All that I had attained, picked up and stored as treasure had become who I was and they were weighing me down. What I had rested my hopes and dreams on was faulty and would have pulled me under had it not been for the realization that even being surrendered to ‘good things’ is not enough to truly live. He is the life. He IS Love. HE is ‘Goodness’ . Like a seed who is totally and unapologetically surrendered to the key elements, so, He had to strip me of these dreams so I could totally surrendered to ‘The Dream’. Himself. The true life worth living, real love and the very source of goodness. Can I express what that dream is? No. I think I’ll spend eternity trying to though.

When I Grow Up...

Everyone has a dream… expectations. A faint, yet beautiful picture of what they hope their life will turn out to be. I had mine. I emphasize the word 'had'. In my early teens, I dreamt of what life might be at the age of twenty four, hardly thinking that it might not turn out to be what I had in mind. Some might think my hopes and goals were too high. If you had said that life has a way of changing our plans, I would have vehemently disagreed with you and told you that you choose certain things in life and what you choose determines the way the story pans out. That’s still true, but only in part. Even though I grew up in a God fearing home, I was only starting to really believe in God myself in my very early teens. I looked into the future at the age of 13 or 14 (if my 14yr old self were here that would be a very important distinction to make) and thought to myself… ‘When I grow up, my walk with God will be so strong that if God were to speak to me I would be able to audibly hear Him. He will speak to me because I'll love like Mother Teresa'. To me, that’s what a "strong relationship" meant... but, oh wait, it gets better! I would say to myself…'when I grow up, I will have married a godly man who can sing, who loves going on the road and who is a real man, (wouldn't cry for anything) all by the age of 21. We would start to think of children by the age of 25 and have our 1st child by the age of 30. Hhmmm...I still want a ‘man-ly’ guy but my timing has been way off! There's more… I would think to myself…'when I grow up, I’m going to be more driven, more dedicated. I will be smarter, wiser, more beautiful inside and (especially) out. I will be more successful because my voice will be a lot more mature and sound just as good as Witney Houston. I will not be shy, I will not be insecure. I will never worry about this or that because I would have grown into myself enough to be sure of most things. I would never worry about my own relationship with God. I'll be so spic and span that not even the whitest snow could compare. I won’t be and never will return to, where I am now. Such were the thoughts of a 13 year old (maybe 14) This was my dream. These were my expectations. An unrealistic painting of my future. Quite comical isn't it? What is really funny (and a little sad) is that I really, really believed it all. I thought that it was all going to happen by the time and age that I gave it. Granted, those things can happen and some might happen, but so far, it has been nothing like I expected. I was around 23, almost 24,( if my 23yr old self were here she would add that age is NOT an important distinction to make). It was a couple of weeks before my birthday when I had a break-down of sorts. Had I achieved all that I set out to do? NO! Where was my knight in shining armor? Where was the spiritually enlightened state I was meant to be at? Where was the strong secure woman I saw in my minds eye? Why wasn't I there yet? With tears in my eyes, I believed that I had failed. The looming cloud of complete disappointment finally surrounded and defeated me. I was half embarrassed that I actually believed my childhood dreams and half heart broken that my dreams hadn’t come true. There have been many sleepless nights of me squinting my eyes shut, trying desperately to imagine more dreams for a girl who's almost 25… The problem is... I had no more dreams. To be continued...