The Seed Saga

Apparently, the garden of Eden was not located on the equator, because there is a total of 27 minutes that fall into the "cool of the day" category. This morning working a section of dirt (with gloves on to shield me from ant attacks).

I wish I had taken a before picture of the garden for you, but it won't be hard to imagine. I'll describe it for you: grass. Yep, and lots of it. See, that was easy. This whole garden idea started about a year ago when I started buying vegetable seeds that I came across in the hardware store. I was like, hey, one day I should plant a garden. Little did I know that seeds have an expiration date, so when I planted them all a year later they didn't do what seeds are supposed to do...grow.

I had my little seed pods, and even special seed dirt (yep, there is such a thing) and I still got nothin'. Nada. Oh wait!!!! Three weeks after the seeds were supposed to germinate something started happening!!!! Little green things started sprouting all over the seed cups! Success!

Wait a minute...all these little green things look the same. Let them grow a little longer, and see what happens. Maybe plants look the same when they start sprouting. Fast forward a week, and they still look the same. Apparently, I was successful at growing grass. Great.

And the Lord saith to me, you can have bad seed. Really? I thought seeds were like super freeze-dried protected plants. That even after millions of years they can sprout again and make a little replica of mommy and daddy. Nope. I was wrong. You can have bad seed that makes bad fruit, or you can have just plain ole bad seed. The no grow kind, the stagnant christian life kind, the make you wait a month before you find out you have wasted your time and energy because nothing is ever going to grow kind!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, venting complete.

So really folks, take a look at the seed you are planing. Are you sowing old seed and expecting it to produce?

But, great news, Mark's mom brought me a bunch of seeds from the great US of A, so I should be up and running again soon. =D

In the Garden

There is an old hymn that bears the name of this post, and its gentle refrain sings the words

...And He walks with me and he talks with me, And He tells me I am His own, And the joy we share as we tarry there, None other has ever known...

 I don't think it was an accident that the place God chose to put Adam and Eve was a garden. In fact, He didn't just plunk them down in the middle of some pretty flowers and call it good, nope, Genesis tells us that He prepared a place for them. He separated the water from the land, separated the day from the night, added animals and plants, and then He created man and woman and placed them into what we know as Eden. Eden...the closest place to Utopia we could ever hope to find. 

God was first. He was there before anything was, so He gets to be first at everything. Therefore, He was the first gardener. And since that is the first thing recorded in the Bible, His written communication to us, I think gardening is special to Him. Even Jesus used a lot of agricultural references in His parables and teachings.

I have started a garden. There are a lot of benefits to having a garden, but the one I hope to get is knowing God's mind a little better. So I am out there in the yard with my hands in the dirt realizing what God meant when He told Adam that, "...by the sweat of your brow you will have food to eat..." (Genesis 3).

I think to myself, He should have added, "and by the stinging of ants."

So, maybe there will be some more posts in the future about my gardening adventures and how God speaks to me there. Would y'all like that?