Swimming Around The Rock

 I have felt depression laying its desperate fingers across my mind for weeks.  Lately, as I try to make my way back to a sound mind, I have begun to feel more and more frantic.  There has to be an end, a way out and I'm so desperate to NOT feel this way that I expend all my energy trying to chase after a sound mind, which I am learning is counter-intuitive.  There's something about rest that I haven't quite learned yet, but I'm close to understanding and implementing in my life.

God promises we are never left alone and he promises that when we draw near to him, He will draw near to us.  

Do you know WHY God can promise that?  Do you know why it's so easy for God to draw near to us, when we finally surrender our own will and draw near to him, instead of striving for the answers?  BECAUSE HE'S ALREADY THERE!  It isn't that God puts up a wall and stays WAY over on his side, and then when we finally draw near to him for comfort and refuge, he can come from far off to rescue us.  I lived under that lie for most of my life, thinking that I could push God away, far from my heart and current situations.  I had such a small understanding of who God was and the depth of love Jesus poured out on the cross that I believed I had some kind of power or ability to force God back onto "his side."

The reason it is so easy and God can draw near to us swiftly is because He never went anywhere.  He has always been right by our side, just waiting for us to #1 SEE HIM and #2 be willing to show him all the dark places in our hearts and minds.  He wants us to lift them up to him, like a child shows a drawing to a parent.  He has the ability to look at the messes we make of our hearts as a loving parent looks at meaningless lines and scribbles on a page. 

Maybe what we made is complete trash.  Maybe our efforts to make a life worthy of Christ's sacrifice is a jumbled mess that doesn't make any sense.  And yet still, God asks us to show him.  Show him what we are hiding behind our back.  To stop looking down in shame, and to look up - to him.  To see his eyes.  If you were to look into God's eyes, not expecting shame and condemnation, you would find all the things you have been searching for.  His eyes are so full of love and pride for the wrecks we are.  We are broken vessels, and God is the artist who created us.  Beyond that, God finds delight that we even tried to make something to begin with and he draws us close for a hug and tells us how beautiful our creation is, for no other reason than because he believes it is true!

It is impossible for God, the creator and artist, to pile shame and guilt on us, his creation.  That is the exact opposite of what Jesus' life was about.  He lived and died to prove to us that our shame doesn't hold any weight in the eyes of God.  He knew our tendency to let shame rule us, and so he put shame to death once and for all. And all these years later, so many of us still live as if shame has a place in our lives.  We have misunderstood and mis-preached in our churches what the Cross was really about for too long.  If we aren't preaching that the Cross brings freedom from the shame that shackles us, we are doing something wrong.

Today I was really feeling the heaviness cover my mind and body.  As I was driving home from work, I was talking to God about this and was thinking about how it feels like I am swimming through a tangibly thick fog.  My movements are slow and I'm not making much progress.  And as I was pouring my heart out to God, the song Promises by Maverick City Music came on.  And as I was contemplating this thickness I was swimming through, I heard these words:

I put my faith in Jesus

My anchor to the ground

He's my hope and firm foundation

He'll never let me down

The minute I heard them, the picture in my mind that I wasn't really certain I was seeing clarified.  I saw this large rock in the middle of an ocean.  The rock cannot move.  It is fixed to the ground, anchoring itself in the midst of the wind and waves all around.  It is immovable.  And if it is my firm foundation, then what in the world am I doing, swimming around the rock, in fog I don't belong in???

As soon as I realized it was my perspective that was off, the immediate thought was to let the guilt and shame for forgetting this crush down on me.  But by the grace of God, I have been learning that shame doesn't have a place in my heart and I realized that what I really needed to do was to climb back up on the rock and just STOP.  Stop striving.  Stop trying to find the shore, as if the shore or the other side is somehow accessible by getting down from that Rock that is to be my firm foundation.  If I stay on the rock, where the footing is solid, I don't get lost in the fog and the thickness.  And I certainly don't have to try to swim through unknown and terrifying waters by myself.  But if I get down off the rock, I position myself AWAY from God, who is a place of safety and peace and protection.  

Hear me.  The depression hasn't magically gone away, just because I realized that I had once again been trying to find a sound mind by STRIVING.  But sometimes shifting perspective back to its proper place is what is needed.  Sometimes stopping and just waiting for the wind and waves to die down is necessary.  Maybe God isn't asking me to dive into the depths of the crazy in my mind and fight my way through to him.  Maybe he's simply asking me to sit on the rock for however long it takes for that fog to pass.  Because here's the thing about fog.  It DOES lift.  It DOES move away, leaving a clear path again.

And the crazy thing is that this Rock, this firm foundation, while fixed, moves through life with us.  It is always right there beside us (underneath us if we are brave enough to stand on it), ready to be a place of safety and a place of rest.  But God doesn't force us to climb back up on the rock and wait out the storm with him.  He certainly wants us to, because like any good parent, he wants to protect us (from ourselves most of the time) and he wants us to be able to navigate from a place of safety.  He understands that when we jump down into the ocean and try to swim through all the noise that we are moving away from him.  

Sure, we might stay near the rock, practicing all the things we have learned in our lives of faith, and we might not be actively running into sin.  But he wants us to understand that we don't have to get off of that foundation at all.  We don't have to be in the thick muddy waters on our own.  YES, we have to be IN THEM.  That is life and it is hard.  But we are never asked to walk it alone.  We don't have to swim blindly through the fog.  We won't get anywhere for our striving outside of God-in fact, we end up going in circles, never really making progress.  And yet, if we get up on that rock and look out, while we may not see the path, we WILL see light on the horizon.  There is HOPE out there, and we simply cannot see it while we are in the water, trying to swim through the fog.  We HAVE to get back up on the rock if we want to see the hope that is on the horizon.  And we have to wait there until the fog passes, so that we can then safely move through the waters again, clinging to the Rock that will never fail.

New Life in the New Year

For years I have watched at a distance while other people garden, anything from flowers to food for their tables.  As a kid, we grew many things, including some fruit trees, grapes and strawberries.  The strawberry patches are most memorable, because I hated picking strawberries all day in the heat of the summer.  There were things to make it more palatable: the ability to pick and eat as many strawberries as I wanted on the job, and most rewarding, a pond to jump into when a refreshing swim was needed to cool off or break up the monotony.

As an adult, in our starter home, ONE year I threw some tomato and jalapeno seeds out on the side of the house.  I didn't harvest anything, though I did manage to germinate them and get them going well, until the squirrels decided they liked it better if I stayed in my house where I belong, so they ate them. 

When we moved to this new house, the prior owners left me with an entire garden to tend to and try not to kill.  Most things made it to fall, but a few things were trampled by the dogs and lack of consistent watering through the summer while the house sat empty.  I lost a Chinese peony to the dogs trampling the flower beds, but I am hopeful it will come back in the spring.  Regardless, those plants gave me a crash course in gardening.  I had to learn some things, because I suddenly had all these extra living creatures to care for the minute we moved in.  I'm most proud of my Brazilian Jasmine, which stayed strong and continued up the vine into fall.  I did a rough experiment, and did NOT winterize it, because I want to see what all comes back in the garden with little to no effort on my part.  I like the idea of gardening, but I have learned myself well, and I know that if it takes too much day-to-day care, I am more likely to kill it.  I can garden and I can keep things alive - but they have to do their part too, by trying not to die.  It's an agreement I make with the plant--I will try to keep you alive and you will try not to die.  There is harmony when everything in the garden plays by the rules.

But now, I have upgraded my gardening game.  If I had seen this system on my own, I would have thought, "wow that's really cool but I probably can't buy something like that for another decade or so."  But my husband.  You guys, this man loves me well.  Not just because he gives me nice things, though he does.  But because he looks for ways to make my heart happy.  His gifts always have thought and love behind them, and when he hits the ball, it is usually straight out of the gift-giving park.

I don't usually like being outside in the elements (rain, snow, COLD, extreme heat).  I am so thankful I live in an area where we have a more normal four seasons because I need the break in between seasons.  It would be too much I think to live somewhere it is always hot or always cold.  At least in the Midwest you get a fair variety of things.  So while I love the idea of gardening, once the temps outside become unbearable (which to me is usually below 30 or above 85 degrees), I will become inconsistent with my care.  I have loved having house plants to tend to these last 3 months, because I can keep them alive without worrying about the conditions outside.

Enter my new toy, the Gardyn, that Kris surprised me with for Christmas.  He doesn't always spend extravagantly, but when he does, it is usually on me.  Look, he married a woman who likes nice things and who is drawn to things that are shiny and cool.  And my husband is a gadget guy, who loves to do research and get the best deal, while also benefiting from said gadget.  It's a win-win for me, really.  I get to be spoiled, and he gets to try out new tech-y toys.

So, we got the Gardyn set up on 12/28, and then were promptly without internet for another 24 hours.  I reset my sow date to 12/29, once the Wifi was back up and running consistently, and the Gardyn system used its built in hydroponics to begin watering my babies on a schedule.  The Gardyn came with 30 pods: 

GREENS

Arugula x 2

Breen

Butterhead

Endive Lettuce

Green Mustard

Kale

Kale Lacinato

Lollo Rossa

Monte Carlo

Red Sails x 2

Red Mustard

Romaine

Rouge D’hiver

Swiss Chard

Tatsoi x 2

HERBS

Basil

Cilantro

Italian Parsely

Mint

Oregano

Rosemary

Thai Basil

Thyme

FRUITS

Cherry Tomatoes

Jalapeno

Mini Eggplant

Sweet Peppers

I didn't start the green mustard, either kale variety (NEVER), or the extra Red Sails, Tatsoi and Arugula. In just 4-5 days, I have some clear winners. Leading the charge were Tatsoi (it was the very first sprout and within 4 hours had doubled in size), Rouge D'hiver, Arugula, Red Sails Lettuce, and Monte Carlo. The others are slower, and some take 10-14 days to sprout. So it's early, and I need to move them around now that I found a chart showing where it's best to place each thing in the Gardyn.

So what does this have to do with anything?

Well, I started the Gardyn on 12/29, and woke up to a brand new year yesterday with my first sprout. I had been watching the plants, several times a day making excuses to go check on them. I would talk to them, like any crazy plant person, and encourage them to grow. It shocked me, and at the same time didn't, that as the new year dawned, new life was beginning in my Gardyn. It was not lost on me, this literal picture of new life. I couldn't shake this thought of New Life as I got ready for church. The music and sermon were on point, and continued to echo this idea of New Life as this new year stretches out before us.

The old dead things will be cast off. I open myself up to be pruned and shaped this year. As I cultivate and harvest and tend to my garden throughout 2023, I am making an agreement with God. I choose to let him, the ultimate Gardener, have control over my thoughts, my mind, my life. I learned a lot about myself in 2022, and one of the biggest lessons is that it's past time to let the roots be trimmed back so that I can grow fuller and healthier.

I've done a crash course in gardening over the last week, reading, studying, ensuring that I feel confident in managing the Gardyn. I have seen pictures of roots that get out of control and take over the entire system, and I immediately drew the connection between the unhealthy things in my life. There are habits and thought processes that don't belong. There are lies that have been my companions and sounding board for decades. And starting therapy last year identified several areas where I need pruning. The roots of negative thinking have grown strong and thick and deep, and have woven themselves around places in my life they do not belong. The goodness in my heart is often trying to fight against external distractions. If I don't tend to that goodness, that kindness, that tenderness, the roots will be damaged, and that will bring darkness and disease to my entire being. Little by little, sickness can creep in, if allowed, and affect everything around it.

This Gardyn, like my soul, will need constant tending to. If I just let it go and let it do its thing, it will do what it thinks is best, and honestly, I will get a harvest of something. On its own, while my Gardyn could possibly yield a bountiful harvest, it is not lost on me that by lovingly and consistently tending to the plants, I can help them thrive. If you have ever tried to keep anything alive (plant or child), you know that it requires a great deal of time and effort. You get out what you put in. So if I spend time cleaning the system, trimming the roots, cutting back places that are overgrown, giving extra help to areas not getting enough light, the results will be greater than if I just sit back and watch what happens.

We have a responsibility to take an active role in leading our thoughts and minds. We have the power to control how we think, which in turn will control how we react to the stresses in our life. I am just now scratching the surface of this. We COULD sit back and let the lies and darkness run amok in our lives. Or we could take the reins and refuse to be guided by things that do nothing but make us miserable.

I am the master of my Gardyn. I have final say in what I grow, where the plants are placed, and how much extra care they are given. It is up to me to do what is best for the Gardyn. To use the system as it was designed, but to give it the loving care the plants need to thrive. The same is true with my mind and my soul. It is up to me to grow. I can stay where I am, watching the world pass me by, watching others grow and thrive. I can wish for what they have as I watch them. But that will not move me forward. There is work I have to do to get the life that I want. To be healthy, I have to do the hard work to prune away the unhealthy, negative ways I have always allowed myself to think and live under.

This will be an interesting year as I look at my life through the Gardyn. There will be ups and downs. There will be plants that will require more time and attention. There will be plants, very likely, that will create disruption and anxiety for me. They will frustrate me and make me want to give up. Does that sound like life to anyone else?

But just like I am doing with therapy, I will press on. I will keep tending to and pruning, and giving time and attention to my Gardyn, and to my soul. It is not a one time thing. It will have to be an EVERY day effort. People who win prizes for gardening are not the ones who sit back and do nothing. They are the ones who get their hands dirty. Who devote their time to studying what's in the garden, and then using whatever tools are needed to keep the plants as healthy as possible.

The very second contaminates enter into your garden, your job gets harder. And if you don't stay on top of it, it will get out of control and when left unchecked, the darkness and disease will take over the entire system. Sin and unhealthy patterns of thinking do the exact same thing in our hearts and souls. They will destroy us, if left unchecked. I have lived this firsthand. I have watched a beautiful garden grow sick and dark and deadly. Even if a plant dies, it will wreak havoc on a healthy garden, especially if you do not remove it immediately. The only way to heal a sick garden is to completely eradicate the disease and death. Sometimes it will require complete disassembly and intense cleaning before it can be put back together. But the beauty is that no amount of death and decay is too much. The Master Gardener is capable of taking death and decay and breathing new life into it. New blooms can grow from dead ground when God is involved. He can take broken, hardened ground (and hearts) and he can breathe his gentle breath and everything touched by it will be changed. New life will spring up, because God tells it to. Because God cannot abide in death and darkness.

Aren't you tired of living under the weight of guilt and shame or fear and darkness? Isn't it time to try something new? Yes it's hard. Yes it is scary. But look at the end result of a well-tended garden. Beauty and life and new growth abound. And when that happens, it literally cleans the air of toxins. Don't you want to breathe fresh air through lungs that are no longer choked out by the lies of the world? Think about how freeing it would feel to believe that YOU can change and start a new groove for your life.

I'm not a big fan of new years resolutions. I think we make them too complicated. I likely will not lose 50 pounds this year, because I can tell you right now, I probably won't even try. I spent a lot of new years already feeling like a failure. There can be a lot of guilt and shame associated with the new year, especially if you grew up thinking you HAD to choose something to be better at in the new year. It was a "thing" to make a new year resolution-it is still a thing. I think in trying to "be better" in the new year, we lost sight of what the new year is about.

It's not about setting you up for failure. It's a chance to renew your hope. It's a chance to start over. It doesn't mean you HAVE to do something grand with 2023. The new year should give us hope, not fill us with terror. It should remind us that whatever happened in the past year, that year is over and done with. Maybe the year was filled with misery and grief for you. 2023 is a sign of hope, that maybe the pain will lighten a bit and things will seem less impossible in the coming year. Maybe the year was an amazing year, and 2023 is a chance for you to cling to the joys that 2022 brought, because you may need those reminders in the coming year. I don't know what 2023 holds for you or for me. But I know that as I sit at the start of the year, my only goal is to keep pruning the garden of my soul and to keep making more room for Jesus - because what he can grow is going to be so much better than anything I can create on my own.

You Keep Hope Alive

Days may be darkest

But Your light is greater

You light our way

God, You light our way

When evil is rising

You're rising higher

With power to save

With power to save

You keep hope alive

You keep hope alive

From the beginning to end

Your word never fails

You keep hope alive

Because You are alive

Jesus, You are alive

Death had a stronghold

But Your life was stronger

Rose from the grave

Rose up from the grave

When evil is rising

You're rising higher

With power to save

With power to save

You keep hope alive

You keep hope alive

From the beginning to end

Your word never fails

You keep hope alive

Because You are alive

Jesus, You are alive

There's hope in the morning

Hope in the evening

Hope because You're living

Hope because You're breathing

There's hope in the breaking

Hope in the sorrow

Hope for this moment

My hope for tomorrow

There's hope in the morning

Hope in the evening

Hope because You're living

Hope because You're breathing

There's hope in the breaking

Hope in the sorrow

Hope for this moment

My hope for tomorrow

You keep hope alive

You keep hope alive

From the beginning to end

Your word never fails

You keep hope alive

Because You are alive

Jesus, You are alive

You keep hope alive

You keep hope alive

From the beginning to end

Your word never fails

You keep hope alive

Because You are alive

Jesus, You are alive

There is hope

You keep hope alive

You keep hope alive

You keep hope alive

Your word never ever fails

You keep hope alive

Jesus, You are alive

You keep hope alive