When I left my last church position, an image surfaced for me in prayer that has returned to me ever since. The picture is that of a cleared garden bed. The growing season is done, the old growth has been removed, and the soil has been turned over. It is a picture of hard work completed, of coming potential, and most of all it is a picture of patience. See, this picture comes with an invitation. It feels like God is saying to me: “clear the ground, hold the space, then wait.”
This is easier said than done. Especially when the season lengthened. And deepened. And continued. More than one flip of the calendar year went by, and I found myself in a prolonged period of growth, healing, and pruning back. Yet the temptation of that open space continued. It got harder, not easier, to keep holding it open. Weeds crept in, and were pulled back. Repeatedly. Recently, it happened again. I said yes to a couple of “small things” that quickly became much bigger than I expected, in the way these things usually do. I thought these things would take the edge off of the waiting. But suddenly, I felt something deep within myself. Instead of feeling resentful towards the open space, sick of the waiting, feeling like God was inflicting something difficult upon me, I suddenly felt an inner panic, an inner sense that this wasn’t right. Where was my space? I needed it back!
If you are a gardener, you know just how hard it is to keep a fertile patch empty. It’s easy enough during the winter, but during the growing season it feels just about impossible. I was so sick of the weeding that I thought it might be alright if I were just a little less fastidious about it. But then all at once, my inner self rebelled. “What are you doing? Where is my space? I need it!” It shouted at me. All of a sudden I was desperate to have that openness back, where I could watch what was planted there very slowly emerge.
In the midst of this panic, I was on a retreat at my friend’s beautiful farm, and God told me some things about myself too. I had turned holding this space into something a bit antagonistic, something God was making me do. It was an onerous chore, though one that I could admit was probably quite good for me. But I had it wrong, God let me know. We are co-planters in this relationship. My job is not strictly weeding the garden and standing aside, wringing my hands as I wait to see what God has planted. I am an architect in this scenario, too. And one of the reasons for the space that I have is also that I keep on choosing it. I keep saying no to smaller things, or things that aren’t quite right, so that I can make space for some big yeses. God reminded me that while waiting is hard, I am also making choices about what I do and don’t want. I am learning to listen to my deepest desires and to cultivate them. And my desires and God’s desires are not totally different things! They’re actually headed in the same direction. That antagonism was false, a construct of my own making to deal with the frustration of not knowing, the anxiety of not feeling like I can control how everything unfolds.
It was helpful and healthy for me to remember that I am a co-gardener. I have agency and choices, and my feelings matter (both my petty annoyances and my deepest longings). This reminder from God brought us back on the same side, working freely and creatively alongside each other. And while I still experience routine frustration about the state of the garden, and when it will come to fruition in the ways that I am hoping for, it feels so freeing and creative to be collaborating with God again instead of feeling like a sullen garden hand with too much weeding to do. I still don’t know what exactly will take shape in this garden yet, or when, but this shift in posture has turned my heart back toward hope, toward anticipation, and toward trust. As I dig my hands back into the soil to pull more weeds, I also let my imagination run with some beautiful ideas about what might be taking shape around me.
Wellspring 