Patience in Pots

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Psalm 27:14 Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

Several years ago, my precious grandmother passed away, and after much prayer and consideration, we decided to move into the home in which she had lived for the latter part of her life. She built her house next door to the home where she had raised her children and where my mother now lives. One of my grandmother’s passions was gardening and flower arranging, so when she built the home, she built a beautiful rose garden right next to the pathway to our kitchen door. The iron plaque that sat at the entrance to her garden still sits there today. It reads, “Enrapt I sat in the quiet hour and found my soul in the heart of a flower.” She found so much joy in flowers and was incredibly talented in growing and arranging them.

I have always loved flowers and clearly see God’s love written all over them, but never have had much of a knack for growing them or caring for them. We tried caring for the roses for a while after she died, but the plants had gotten old and needed to be replaced. My husband loves the thought of farming, so we replaced the flowers with a vegetable garden in which my husband takes great pride in growing beautiful vegetables.

This spring, I was searching for an activity for my four year old, Virginia, so we went out to my grandmother’s green house where she stored lots of different size clay pots. We took out 9 or 10, found some leftover flower seeds from last year, and went about planting a miniature garden. Virginia loved poking the seeds down into the dirt and would have used every pot in the greenhouse if I had allowed her. She then took each of her pots, one by one, and placed them on the garden wall so that they could soak up the sun. She faithfully watered them every day with my grandmother’s old tin watering can. Within a day or two, they began to sprout. Every time a new one would peek its way out of the dirt, she would run inside to find me and shout that her pots had sprouted. Her eyes doubled in size at the sight of those sprouts, and I will never forget the smile that spread across her little face. You would have thought the resurrection had just occurred in our household. And in a sense it had. To a four year old and to me as well, a plant growing out of a seed is almost as much of a miracle as Jesus being raised from the dead. Einstein said that either everything is a miracle or nothing is a miracle, and in my four year olds opinion, a miracle had occurred in her miniature garden.

My older daughter, Mary Helen, saw what fun we were having with Virginia’s garden, so she had to have one as well. She found several pots and planted them with new seeds and set them out on the garden wall. She was very proud of her garden, which at the time was only dirt, but she showed it to all of her friends that came over to play and anyone who was willing to look. She watered it every day with the same tin watering can, but nothing happened. There were no sprouts, just dirt and a few weeds. She began to get discouraged, and I was tempted to switch out one of her pots for Virginia’s so that Mary Helen could at least have one bloom. But my spirit said no, that this was a wonderful exercise in patience.

We left for the beach with her garden having no blooms and fully expected to come back with pots full of blooms. I even arranged for it to be watered everyday while we were gone. When we pulled into the garage after our drive home from the beach, they both ran into the garden to check their plants. Virginia’s plants were a foot high, but Mary Helen still had none. Mary Helen looked crushed and confused. It didn’t make any sense to her. Why would Virginia’s bloom so quickly and hers take so long. Her father finally discovered that her pots had been placed in a spot that wasn’t getting enough sunlight.

Mary Helen has had to start all over, plant a new garden, and wait again for the first sign of a sprout. I know when it finally appears, the sight of that first plant will be so much sweeter than if it had come up the first day. Although Virginia’s joy was incredibly precious, I can only imagine what Mary Helen’s will be when those sprouts finally emerge.

Like Virginia’s pots, at times, I have prayed for things and see God work immediately. There is so much joy in seeing him work quickly, and God is so gracious in those moments. At times, though, I have prayed and seen nothing happen for so long that it begins to feels as if He will never come. But when He finally does, the victory is so much sweeter and the joy is so much greater.

I could have intervened by swapping one of Mary Helen’s pots with Virginia’s and she would have never known, but she would have missed the sweetest part, the lesson in patience. Just as Mary Helen couldn’t understand why Virginia’s pot bloomed and hers would not, aren’t we so often confused and crushed when God doesn’t do things in our timing. Sometimes I hear God saying that it’s not about the bloom or the victory, though He desires to give us those things, but it’s about the lessons and the things we learn in the process. He is equally as gracious to us in those moments where he requires us to wait. He is giving us a gift that we can’t buy in any store, the gift of his hand molding us and producing in us the fruit of patience. “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” (Psalm 27:14) He wants to give you the desires of your heart.

Note: I wrote this in memory of my late grandmother, Helen Jordan. I think of her often when we are in the garden, and I can still picture the beautiful flower arrangements that adorned her house and her church. I am thankful that my children are learning these amazing lessons about life, in the garden that she built. I still cannot call it my own, as it will always feel like hers to me. She was a special and dear lady whom I miss so much, but I pray she can look down from heaven and see my sweet children planting and growing in the space where she once did the same.