A Season for Everything

The cool autumn weather ushers in one of my least favorite gardening tasks – preparing the garden beds for winter. The stems may still be adorned in green, but their vines are empty. The first freeze is just around the corner, waiting to steal what life is left under cover of the cold night.

It is disheartening to pull up what was planted in hope, to declare dead that which has produced good in my life. But there is a season for everything, whether I accept it or not. And the invitation of this season is to meet God in the garden, to give thanks for the gifts it produced, to pull up that which is dead, and to patiently work with God to prepare the soil for new things to grow. While fallow seasons seem wasted from our limited perspective, miraculous growth is happening deep within and will make all the difference in the success of what is planted next.

I dreaded today’s task, but the One who breathes life into dirt met me there and whispered this truth: with every dead thing I removed from the ground, we are making room for new things to grow.

If you need to pull up that which is dead in your life, God will meet you there, too. God will do miraculous work within and with you to prepare you for what is next. New dreams can be planted. Good things will grow again, and they’ll be nourished by the One who makes beautiful things out of dust.