February Gardener
One of the most wonderful things about being a mother is finding ways to tuck goodness, beauty, and truth into all the nooks and crannies of our family’s life together. Sometimes we do this through stories, sometimes through music, or walks through the neighborhood or a nearby trail, or hugs after hurt feelings, or daily rhythms of prayer and meals together.
Lately, we are learning to do this through really wonderful art. When I came across this lovely painting, “February Gardener” by Lore Pemberton, I knew exactly where I was going to hang it (Oh, there was never any question in my mind about whether we’d be buying a print for our happy little home. That was a given.). It looks just as at home as I imagined it would right above our kids’ bookshelf.
We spend a lot of time in front of our friend the “February Gardener” as the boys try to negotiate which book to read next, or as we walk back and forth from the living room to the kitchen or the laundry room to the bedrooms upstairs (a trip I think I make a zillion times a day), or corral everyone to the table for dinner. And that is how I knew that wall would be the perfect spot this parable of a picture that tells me what the kingdom of God is like.
Those who wait for the kingdom of God are like a February gardener. Even as March approaches and there’s not a leaf to be seen and the gross, gray snow pile in the corner of the grocery store parking lot keeps getting larger, she is ordering seed, counting pots, paying attention to the light and shade as the sun arcs across the sky as she daydreams about what will thrive in each garden bed. Spring is a surety though there is snow on the ground. She has no power in herself to bring Spring about, and the wait can feel like a slog (Fool’s Spring, followed by memes of Hobbits talking about “Second Winter,” anyone?). Yet in the meantime, there is good work to be done to welcome it fully.
She is not blind to reality—it’s frigid in that shed! She braces against the harsh blast of icy winds that cut to the bone, and curses that gross, gray snow in the ditches and corners that will be the last to melt. Yet she knows that Winter cannot stop the growth that is happening even now, as roots stretch deeper into the soil enabling the new life of the Spring to come. Spring is not here, but she feels flickers of its joy, its goodness, its restoration even as she draws her coat closer around her.
Those of us who have set our hope fully on our King and his coming Kingdom are like February gardeners. We see the hard ground and hard hearts of Winter all around. On days like today, we hear of “wars and rumors of wars” and cry out to God to save, to bring his peace and justice. Yet we are also those who—somehow, God help us—“rejoice, though we have considered all the facts,” as Wendell Berry says. By the power of the Spirit who has been given to us as a guarantee of the Spring to come, our hearts are being tuned to sing even in Winter what all of Creation testifies in Springtime, “It will not always be so!”
Soon, my friends, there will be a garden blooming. Through Christ, the work has already begun! So let’s encourage each other to not grow weary as we give it everything we’ve got, tilling up the hard ground in this world and our own hearts, preparing them to welcome the forever-reign of our King. I can feel our restoration in my bones just like the trees can feel it all the way down to their roots. Not too much longer now.