how does your garden grow?

Christian and Annike started a vegetable garden this year.  We always have loads of fruit growing on the farm, but this was our first experiment with veggies.  They began with seed packets, giving Annike the important job of pushing individual seeds into each seed-tray hole.  Note the importance of a proper gardening outfit.

A greenhouse was inherited when we bought the property; this year we initiated it.

 Up came the seedlings,

beets, corn, peas, squash, cucumbers, and carrots, to name a few.

Into the ground they went.

 Water and sunshine turned our seedlings into a bushy garden.

It remains a miracle to me to witness the life that comes forth from a tiny dried up seed.  All of this greenery, vitamins, wealth of nourishment, was captured in a minuscule kernel waiting, unassuming, for some dirt and a little water to help it grow.  A miracle in its simplest form, but miraculous all the same.  

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," 

declares the LORD. 

"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways 

and my thoughts than your thoughts. 

As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. 

Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the LORD's renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed"

Isaiah 55:8-13

We often can't see the purpose for certain events in our lives, for conflicts that arise, for circumstances that occur wholely uninvited, or for pain. But the Lord's promise to us is that His ways are oh-so-much better than our ways.  His Word goes out and does not return empty.  It grows fruit in our lives. It produces peace. It turns thorns and briers into beauty.  It works to achieve an eternal purpose far higher than any I could have imagined.   That is the miracle of the seed.  We can't tell by looking what kind of life will spring forth with a little water.  But the Lord has declared that He will water and there will be yield.  His Word will go out and will not return empty.

How does your garden grow?