\u00a0<\/p>\n
Life is funny sometimes, isn\u2019t it? Though I grew up in a green thumb family, it took me a long time to get out in the garden myself. Over the last seven years, though, it\u2019s kind of become my \u201cthing.\u201d As an unlikely gardener who has learned SO many lessons in the raised beds outside of my front door, I love encouraging other women to get out there and cultivate, too. I\u2019ve taught live classes and published podcast episodes on how to get started gardening, and over the years, I\u2019ve learned a lot about what grows well in our climate and what my family most enjoys. In many ways, I felt like I had hit my stride as a gardener. Last year, though, I learned the garden had another big lesson in store for me \u2026<\/p>\n
2019\u2019s garden started off rocky. With a sore neck and a full schedule, we were a month late in getting our plants in the ground. In fact, I almost didn\u2019t plant anything at all \u2013 but then I remembered why I grow things in the first place. It\u2019s not for the beautiful blooms or the bees (though I love both of those!) \u2014 it\u2019s because the garden is the most impactful backdrop for memories and lessons for my kids.<\/p>\n
Together, we\u2019ve learned patience from waiting for petals to unfurl. We\u2019ve learned hard work from pulling weeds and shoveling dirt. We\u2019ve seen the beauty in little-by-little progress from toting our watering cans around day after day in the hot summer sun. And at the end of the season, we\u2019ve grown in kindness from delivering fresh bouquets to our neighbors.<\/p>\n
So, I (literally) dug in and got those seedlings planted. We rejoiced when they sprouted. And then \u2026 they just stopped growing. In August, I was looking at bare patches of dirt where the year before had been armfuls of zinnias and cosmos. I can give you all the scientific reasons for why this happened \u2014 why things went wrong. I certainly spent enough time thinking about it and trying to problem solve.<\/p>\n
But. What if this was actually just right<\/em>? What if it was exactly what was supposed to happen in this particular year? My husband, Ari, kept telling me, \u201cLara, can\u2019t you see? This is a gift. God is giving you a year of rest.\u201d<\/p>\n To me, though, the gift was the garden. The blooms. My time out here with our children planting hope and sowing love. I felt like we had failed, and I was sad and frustrated. Have you had one of those times? You do everything right, and yet things don\u2019t turn out the way you thought they would.<\/p>\n Slowly, though, I began to listen to Ari. And I heard from God. There might not have been much growing in our garden last year, but my kids were still learning. They saw us relying on him more, in all that didn\u2019t go as planned. They saw us believing in his faithfulness more. They saw us wrestling with disappointment and choosing to find the good. And they joined me in celebrating the few blooms we DID have as if we\u2019d never seen flowers before!<\/p>\n I wanted to grow plants; God wanted to grow perspective.<\/p>\n Whatever plan it is for you (or your kids) that hasn\u2019t gone as planned \u2013 whatever seed that hasn\u2019t sprouted or flower that hasn\u2019t bloomed \u2013 imagine this: what if this failure, this detour, is a time of ripening? What if you and your family will grow from this time like never before, even if you can\u2019t see the fruit yet? Perhaps your disappointments and trials are the very things that will bring you to a day where you can\u2019t help but stand in awe and say,\u00a0\u201cAll of that time waiting \u2014 I was actually growing, even though I couldn\u2019t see it above the surface. Thank you, God! Thank you!\u201d<\/p>\n Check out Lara’s beautiful garden on MOPS Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Previously posted on <\/em>www.ibelieve.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Lara Casey<\/a><\/em><\/strong>\u00a0loves growing flowers and dreams! She is Gracie, Joshua, and Sarah’s mom and she loves getting her hands dirty in the garden just as much as they do! As CEO of Cultivate What Matters<\/a>, Lara is the creator of the best-selling PowerSheets\u00ae Intentional Goal Planner and the Write the Word\u2122 Bible journals, and she is also the author of\u00a0Make It Happen<\/em>,\u00a0Cultivate, <\/em>and her new children’s book Gracie’s Garden<\/a><\/em>. <\/a>You’ll often find Lara, her husband, Ari,\u00a0and their three little gardeners marveling at the bees and blooms in their\u00a0Chapel Hill, North Carolina, garden.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":460,"featured_media":10529,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"In many ways, I felt like I had hit my stride as a gardener. 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