In one of my attempts to be Super-Mom, I thought that teaching my kids about gardening would be a Super-Mom kind of thing to do. A lot of yards in Southern California are pretty small, and the only spot we had for a garden was a gravel-covered area behind the storage shed where we stored our large trash cans, and the Super-Mom in me thought, “Perfect!”
After lots of shoveling, raking and whining, we ended up planting a few strawberry seeds with popsicle sticks to identify their precise placement. My husband, who likes to dream big, planted a pomegranate tree alongside our little strawberry patch. Then we got to work watering our little garden, released some ladybugs for good luck, said a little prayer and hoped for the best.
In spite of our efforts, our little teaching garden never ended up producing much fruit.
Can you even call these actual strawberries?
But our teaching garden still had a lesson to teach us:
Preparing the soil is more than just clearing away the gravel, but it’s a good place to start – in the garden and in the heart.
We were all disappointed in our garden’s harvest, but it turns out that I had made a crucial mistake in this teaching garden; I had failed to learn about how to cultivate healthy soil where our little strawberries could have had a better chance of surviving and thriving.
And if we want to grow in our relationships…
- with our family
- with our friends
- with our coworkers
- with Jesus
…then we will need to clear out the gravel and prepare the soil of our hearts for growth. The gravel that needs to be cleared out will be different for each of us. Perhaps you have a negative attitude or stored up bitterness that makes your heart feel hardened toward others. Maybe you need to let go of some unrealistic expectations so that your heart will soften. Or maybe the gravel that needs clearing is your own guilty feelings about how you’re not measuring up to your idea of Super-Mom!
Whatever your gravel looks like, it’s worth making the effort to clear it out of your heart. Your relationships are worth it. You are worth it.
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