To plant a garden.

Several years ago, a dear saint came to me after church saying I should plant a garden at school. Little did I know what that would spark. I love watching my kids eyes light up as they taste the watermelon that they just pulled off the vine. I love hearing the excitement as they discover a praying mantis for the first time. Both terrified and intrigued as they realize the diversity God has made in his creation. I love the smell of fresh figs as the kids are tentatively tasting the strange looking fruit. I loved the taste of the fresh salsa the kids were excitedly begging everyone in the building to just try. After an amazing summer of sowing, harvesting, and feasting last year, I find myself a little scared.

There is so much faith required in sowing. I plant the tomato seed. I test the soil and buy the right fertilizers and make sure it gets sunlight and water. But I can do nothing to make it grow. There are no guarantees  in the garden. So much is outside of my control. Then you add the variable that is gardening with children. My garden club right now is entirely made up of 12 and 13 year old boys. Some of my boys come from situations you could only imagine. It reminds me that only God makes anything grow. When sowing requires a child that can barely read and doesn't really do chairs to read and understand the directions on the back of the seed starting kit, you never know what's gonna happen. But, despite the fiercest odds against them, I come back from the weekend to 16 lovely, but fragile tomato seedling about to bust the lid off the little container.

So many Biblical stories are about planting and growing. My response to fear in the garden is over planting. If all my tomato seeds grow, I'll have thirty or forty tomato plants to find room for. My sowing the word should be similar. Sow widely. Sow where it doesn't look like anything should be able to grow. Water even the weakest plant. I don't know where God will choose to grow anything. He chooses the weak things to shame the wise. So I pray that my garden will grow. I pray that my desire for evangelism will grow. I pray that Christ's church will grow here. I pray. I need to persevere in prayer. I pray for more faith in the sowing. I pray for the courage to pray for even the most desperate situation. The ones that have already been written off by statisticians and politicians alike. I pray for my gardening club. I pray the act of sowing and reaping would create a wonder for God's miraculous creation.

To learn to remember.

I've found myself taking a step back and asking myself how I got here a lot often. I'm getting to the point in my life where there are enough years behind me to get lost and distracted in regrets. I find myself swirling in discontent. I sit and let the waves of what could have been crash over me until I'm nearly drowning. Once I get to that place I find it very difficult to drag myself from seashore to go on living my life.

It's so easy to sit here and imagine what amazingness would have befallen my life if I had known I'd still be single and had gone to medical school. I wonder what my life would look like it I had gone to the University of Georgia instead of George Washington. What if...

But as I was lecturing my sister today about trusting that God's grace is sufficient for what she has been given today. Reminding her that she doesn't need to regret yesterday or fear tomorrow because the only two days that actually matter on the calendar are today and that day. I, just a few hours later, find myself needing the same lecture.

I find my faith weak. I find it quite difficult to praise God that "The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance." Because the boundary lines of my life right now actually feel quite difficult. I'm finding myself taken by surprise when there is much toil in my work. I'm finding my mind and body wearier and wearier as the days of the year toil on.

But as I read the rest of Psalm 16, I find my God kind in his comfort. David's words are not being sung out of confidence in his circumstances. David's words are being sung out of confidence in his God. "Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure."

I can look back and see that my level of discontent seems to rise inversely as my time in meditating on the word and the gospel ebbs. I see the way out of this seemingly hopeless swirl of discontent in my circumstances. My God has placed me precisely where he wants me. He knew exactly how difficult it would be, and he calls me to depend more and more on him as my circumstances seem to get more and more difficult.

My anger at the toil in my work is rooted in laziness and a lack of self-control. Sins I should be actively fighting and praying for deliverance from. Instead I feed them with excuses, excess, and limitless procrastination.

So how should I remember? Why is it so easy to remember the parts of my life that are hard and still raw wounds, but God's faithfulness in answering prayers and providentially leading me to places I never would have chosen but have been great places for me. When I think about the past, I think abou

Psalm 16

"A miktam^a of David.

1Keep me safe, my God,

for in you I take refuge.

2I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;

apart from you I have no good thing.”

3I say of the holy people who are in the land,

“They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.”

4Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.

I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods

or take up their names on my lips.

5Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup;

you make my lot secure.

6The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;

surely I have a delightful inheritance.

7I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;

even at night my heart instructs me.

8I keep my eyes always on the Lord.

With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

9Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;

my body also will rest secure,

10because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,

nor will you let your faithful^b one see decay.

11You make known to me the path of life;

you will fill me with joy in your presence,

with eternal pleasures at your right hand."

So I take a moment to remember God's faithfulness. God answering prayers. And ultimately, God's supreme kindness at the cross.