A Garden of Hope

A Garden of Hope

Image by Ekaterina Ershova from Pixabay

Last weekend, I planted our vegetable garden. For those in warmer climates, it might seem a little late to be planting, but in the Upper Midwest of the U.S., mid-to-late May is the earliest we can plant.

As I tucked the delicate little plants into the dirt, I began to think about hope. There is a lot of hope in planting a garden. There is the hope that I will get more than a sore back from all the work. There is the hope that the rabbits won’t eat the green bean plants like they did last year. There is the hope that the sun and the soil come together in their divine dance to produce a bountiful crop of tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, green beans, onions, leeks, and lettuce. There is the hope for the garden-fresh dinners to come.

But there is a deeper hope when I plant a garden.

There is the hope that I will be here to harvest the vegetables. There is the hope that my home, my family, my life as I know it will be here when the tomatoes are at their most abundant. There is the hope of more days, weeks, and months to come. Though, there are no guarantees.

We read in Hebrews 11:1: “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.”

It is easy to lose our faith and our hope in a world of turmoil. It is easy to slip into a “woe is me” or “what’s the point” thinking. Why plant a garden if there is not hope for tomorrow?

I prefer to believe that “whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (2 Corinthians 9:6). So, I keep tucking the little plants into the dirt with hope for tomorrow.

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