Old Winter Prayer, God’s Blessing & the November Garden

November came with the bursting of my son’s flower. It was gifted to us when friends found out we were pregnant with our boy. It then had quite the story in the ground then trampled, then in a Lowe’s paint bucket where it recovered, and then in the ground again where it has bloomed to bursting and will stay! I love the vibrancy of these blooms. An accurate portrayal of the joy of my son and his love for life.

I came across a prayer in my journal from January 7. Part of it read,

“Lord, please bless my garden this year. I’ve never really prayed that way before, but only You can bless it.”

I don’t typically share my prayers like this, but I sat stunned after I read this from January 7. With Heidi on the way ahead of the spring season, we weren’t making the spring garden an elaborate thing. Truth be told we never have a detailed plan. We never get to all our seeds. It’s just Ben and I throwing seeds at the wind. Figuratively, of course. But really when I picture Ben and I as gardeners, we are just laughing out in the yard, throwing seeds at the wind.

We put seeds in rather haphazardly and see what happens. We offer so little expertise to it. Every year we get a little more established, a bit more nurturing, but far from the gardening crowd. This year we “threw the seeds in” and were going to just let the garden be whatever it was going to be. We’d put our hands to it, of course, but we were having a baby. That was going to be our spring!

In the midst of postpartum, newborn days, and life, the garden truly didn’t always get what we should have given to it. But the sunflowers towered effortlessly, anyway. The rose bushes thrived–blooming in May, June, October, and November. Mums changed from stark white to a beautiful tint of purple and even some becoming purple in full. We built a playhouse. I laid in grass for hours on end with the children growing, playing, and thriving right alongside the roses. The planted wildlfowers surprised me. The morning glories were glorious. The grape vine bore fruit. It was sour, but it was loads of fun! We had snow peas. We had green grass all through the summer! It was all the sweeter having planted many of our seeds a few days before Heidi’s birth.

This November I walk into the house on a cold Saturday with a pile of colorful zinnias. I sit on the living room floor harvesting hundreds of sunflower seeds. Later, I’ll sit at my desk stamping seed packets for family and friends. I’ll smile at zinnias leaning over their flower bed and looking as though they are saying “hello!”

That January 7 prayer I forgot, “Lord, please bless my garden this year,” was answered tenfold.

I gave birth to a spring baby and my garden had the spring of its life.

I’ll never get over the gift of this year’s garden. November felt like its last hoorah. As we’ve turned into December, the roses die back. The grape vine leaves turn yellow. I am drawn to look down at the garden floor scattered with leaves across the stones and grass. It is stunning.

That red rose bush you’ve seen throughout is finally succumbing. It has carried the song “What a beautiful year, what a wonderful spring, the year of your daughter, God’s blessing over us, joy!”

As the garden quiets it is my turn to sing. To let the year of God’s abundance and blessing rest heavy on me until it is I who bursts into Thanksgiving.

And I do.

God answered my old winter prayer. He blessed the garden. And I experienced the entire stunning saga.