Tending the Soil … Planting Lavender

God calls us to faithfully persist in hoeing the solid ground of our hearts and replenishing it with the needed nutrients and rich dirt that God so generously supplies.

Therapeutic Gardening

Do you enjoy gardening or planting of any kind? Perhaps the colors of a well-laid out garden catch your attention? Or maybe, it’s the sweet smells that come from your garden that make all your hard work so satisfying? For me living in the south of France, planting lavender is the best bet for optimum survival rate and beauty!

A Novice but Willing Gardener

I am a novice gardener, with an emphasis on the word “novice.” However, there is something therapeutic for me to be working outside in the garden. The way I view it is that the alternative is facing the needed desk work that seems to be always piled high.

My aversion to desk work can be best illustrated by the following example:

• When we lived in Chicago we were renting an older home that sat on 3 acres of property. My weekly thrill was to get on the riding lawnmower and just mow! Maybe it had to do with the enjoyment of putting on the headphones and shutting the world out? Or perhaps it was the idea that this was my 2 hour escape from the life of being a young mom? It probably was both. 😉 

As we have come to southern France, I have continued my love for the garden. I’ve enjoyed getting to know the various plants that grow well in this rocky soil. And as Spring has arrived the time has come to survey the ground and anticipate the upcoming months.  So with hoe and gloves in hand and the vision of planting lavender that will both calm my heart & soul, I gathered my resolve. I can so this!

Southern French Soil

This past week, the weather broke from the spring torrential rains! I was so excited to be able to poke my nose outside and get my hands into the soft soil. At the local market I had bought 3 lavender plants and I really wanted to get them planted. And so the morning began. Excited to be able to actually put a spade to this normally hard soil, my enthusiasm was high.

Yet, as I began to work the soil, discouragement started to set in. Whereas the first layer of the dirt was pliable and easy, the further I dug down, the shovel no longer worked with ease. Choice palm-sized rocks discovered below the surface were being thrown left and right to our waiting dog, Tzatziki! He was thinking this adventure was the best day ever!

And can I say, if you think you have seen weed roots, I would invite you to come and see these beauties! I am sure the mother plants are several meters below the surface and needless to say require quite a lot of physical strength to battle.  But, I wasn’t about to be deterred! I was determined in planting lavender in this bed and I decided then and there I would win the battle.

The Soil of Our Hearts

Yet, as I was working with the hoe in my hand, my thoughts began to move towards the spiritual fields here in our city, as well as all over the world. The spiritual ground at times can be like cement as the world’s persistent voices and opinions speak so loudly. Our hearts grow hard and some of those pesky “roots” of wrong decisions or bad habits make the “soil” of our lives visibly rough. 

But God calls us to faithfully persist in hoeing the solid ground of our hearts. With these commands in view, John and I continue to till the soil here in our city. We keep picking up the needed utensils to break up the fallow ground of our own hearts and then also coming along side those God has given us to serve.

But we not only seek to faithfully hoe the ground, we want to make sure that the needed nutrients of God’s Word is being poured lavishly into the soil. What a gracious God we have! He abundantly grants us the life-giving amendments needed to live lives that are rooted and grounded in His love.

As our roots go down deep into His marvelous love, think of the spiritual garden on display!

What a field filled with beauty and fragrance!  

Focused on the Fragrant Field to Come

As I continued working in the lavender bed, my thoughts were no longer lingering over the hardness of the ground. Instead, my eyes began to see the end result of the fragrant lavender in the summer sun.

After planting lavender beds, I knew that those plants would soon begin to take root and blossom in this rocky soil.

My mind likens it to the fragrance that I have delighted in as I have watched people who have turned to the One and True God. They have allowed the Master Gardener to till up the fallow ground of their hearts. And He has produced in them a fragrance that is none other than heavenly. … Oh, how fragrant heaven will be!

Keeping my eyes on the end goal changes the way I view today’s hard work in the “fields.”

“… and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith…” (Hebrews 12:1-2)