I'm Stoking Fires Not Growing Gardens

I’ve grieved not being able to get anything to grow. Not a dang thing. In the seventeen years of moving, traveling and transitioning with my Trotter Tribe I’ve felt delight and pride in establishing a secret garden of potato vines, petunias, and ferns.

I’ve laid aside a plot of earth to create lush color and the advancement of growth. Somehow this simple act has emerged through my life as an expression of external reality with internal spirituality. I become aware beyond the outside world of my placement both in my current location and the placement of God’s mighty plan. There is a great imagination of the possibilities of digging a seed deep within the crumbling earth, within the darkness of soil and waiting with anticipation for beauty to break forth and sprout up. It has been a cathartic part of transitions. I am able to see, work and tend a visual cultivation of both earth and heaven to watch life grow.  

But not here. Not now. No garden.

Much as I have tried potted plants, ground covering, flowers, seeds, bulbs…nada. 

No supple earth. No fresh water. No free space. 

No garden.

So, I’ve grieved and honestly felt shame as if I am less of a woman because I can’t seem to muster up a green thumb literally and spiritually to make a garden grow.

Yes, I mean this in literal terms and then again in literary terms. The last eighteen months have been the darkest months of doubt and insecurity I have ever navigated in 40 years. Throw a global pandemic on top of the tangled weed pile in my mind and its a sure recipe for defeat. I have tried a million ways to cultivate the earth I am so accustomed to stirring up and planting seeds…..and no garden seems to be breaking forth. 

 All the lies wrap around my soul in the vines of shame and insecurity. I have felt my spirit break a thousand times over the rocky ground I keep crumbling in my hands wondering why I can’t get something, ANYTHING, to grow. You may not desire to grow a literal garden, but we all have an intangible desire to cultivate the seedlings of dreams, sow into lives and soil and watch God work.

A few mornings ago, in the rawness of grief and pain and lament I demanded God for victory on my back porch. I sat staring into the forest chasm of my backyard, burning tears and shaking lips uttering anger, resentment and fear {oh the fear!} to having no idea why I couldn’t get anything to take root and grow.

Then I heard the inclination of the Lord whisper to my spirit….

“I don’t want a garden in this place, Cari. I want a flame.”

I realized I was sitting in front of our family firepit set up in our back yard and the unquenchable desire to spark a flame ran through my entire being. Never have I built and maintained a fire on my own. Never. But something roared through my tears and my pain and my toil like a blaze. 

So I built my first fire. I watched the miniscule flame flicker small and then go out. I light another match and watch the flame begin to dance and chase….

….and go out.

 I begin again. 

….and again.

….and again.

….and again.

Seven times I begin again in the freezing cold, with trembling hands and a desperate heart…..pleading for a flame…

….and then it lit a flame and I cried. Actually, I wept.

I wept white hot surrendered tears because I realized God isn’t asking me to tend a garden. He isn’t asking me to DO anything near as much as He is asking me to steward the flame of my being in Him.

This generation doesn’t need more gardens. We need more flames.

To rearrange the wood, adjust the kindling, light another match, provide more spiritual oxygen and keep the flame of faith courage burning at all costs. To understand there are seasons God is desiring to both burn away the dross and stoke the flame our spirits.

BURN THE DROSS | through confession, admission and repentance.

STOKE THE FLAME | through worship, prayer, community and devotion to scripture.

Speak the Word. Write the Word. Pray the Word. Talk about the Word.

KEEP THE WORD ALIVE AND GLOWING IN YOUR HEARTS AND IN THE HEARTS OF OTHERS.

We may not be able to see much growing in this season and that’s okay. We may not be able to answer the relentless questions of what we are learning through this season and that’s okay too. But one thing we can persistently and relentlessly steward is the flame of God’s call on our lives.

*Here are some additional scriptures to encourage your heart :

“For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” {2 Timothy 1:6-7}

“Take away the dross from the silver, and the smith has material for a vessel.” {Proverbs 25:4}

“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire - may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” {1 Peter 1:6-7}

“He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.” {Malachi 3:3-4}

“Bless our God, O peoples; let the sound of his praise be heard, who has kept our soul among the living and has not let our feet slip. For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out into a place of abundance.” {Psalm 66:8-12}