As some of you know, I am married to a recent retiree, so I can sympathize with all the parents who suddenly have their school-age kids home all day.  I don’t have to concoct lesson plans for Sandy; neither do I have to keep her entertained.  Like many recent retirees, she is working off a backlog of things to do that she has been looking forward to for years.  In addition to sewing about a million face masks and baking wonderful delights (yes, she’s an enabler), she has begun to tear into our gardens.

We moved into our house last year, but we (I mean Sandy) didn’t really have the opportunity to put our (Sandy’s) imprint on the gardens around the house.  Although April weather has not been terribly congenial, Sandy is undeterred.  She is digging up, and transplanting, and donating unneeded plants to unsuspecting family members and friends – dropping off bags and containers of excess perennials the way the stork leaves babies on doorsteps.  I do my part too; I make appreciative noises and unhelpful suggestions as I tour the worksite, beer in hand.

Because we had only lived four years at our last house, everything that we are doing (that Sandy is doing) has the sense of déjà vu.   We dug up, replanted, added new gardens and redesigned everything at our old house and just when the results of our efforts were starting to be evident, we moved.  Now we are again at the early phases of muscling out the old stuff and digging new beds and planting.  I trust that we will be here plenty long enough to see the mature results of our work, but even if we live out the rest of our lives in this house, some of the things we plant will not be fully formed when we are dead and gone.

That’s the way a lot of our lives’ work goes.  We invest diligently in projects whose completion we may never see.  Every parent is forming and shaping the tender growth of our children; we don’t always get to see the result of the inflection we make.  We do our best to establish a trajectory, but the journey is theirs.

Paul talked about his own work as an evangelist and church planter in this way: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.”  (1 Corinthians 3:6-7)  We dream and dig, cultivate and prune; we plant seedlings and envision oaks whose shade we will never know.  We do our work in hope, because we trust in God to bring the growth.

Prayer: Bountiful God, as we sow seeds today, fill us with confident hope that you will bring forth the harvest you desire.  Amen.