Lessons I Learned from my Garden #1

Good things start with a DESIRE

Having grown up on military bases, other than relatives I rarely saw, I never knew any one personally who had a garden. Gardens were exotic places that I saw from a distance when visiting cousins during summer vacation. I really had no clue as to their purpose, or how many hours were spent in them. It wasn’t until I was a newly married 18 year old and heard a wise man say that everyone should plant one, that I even gave the idea more than a cursory nod. Little could I have comprehended then, the life long relationship I would have with my garden.

We planted our first garden in a corner of my mother in law’s vegetable garden our very first summer. A wise man I trusted and loved had openly counselled that we should ALL plant a garden. So we did. We didn’t know a bush bean from a potato plant, but we were enthusiastic and happy to be engaged in the project. By mid summer, morning sickness took over my life and ruled everything I ate, smelled or even thought of. I lost interest in weeding or harvesting that fledgling garden, but my mother-in-law brought an arm full of produce every time she came to visit. I appreciated the gesture, but I really had no interest in anything that ‘smelled’, and that summer, everything ‘smelled’.

I not only felt like a gardening failure, but disloyal to the new wholesome lifestyle it represented. A lifestyle that only a few short months before, I had been so committed to. Some time during the months that followed, that incessant flu-like sickness faded away and we focused on the new baby that would soon be coming to make our family ‘three’. I had such visions of how it was going to be. He arrived in April. We found a house soon after and made an offer to buy it. We were to move in July 1. It had a small spot perfect for a garden and we received permission to plant seeds while we awaited our possession date. We were excited for all it represented, anxious to begin this next step in our life together, but one week before we moved in, Dan got laid off at work. We never did move in, and since we had given notice in our rental, our plans were readjusted quickly. We moved the three of us and everything we owned into Dan’s mom’s basement while we figured out our next step.

Later that summer I learned an important lesson. One of those defining lessons that shapes the rest of your life. That wise man who said everyone should plant a garden, was a prophet (that wasn’t the lesson). His name was Spencer W. Kimball, and when he had said “plant a garden”, it felt like he was speaking directly to me, and I committed to do whatsoever he told me to do (that wasn’t the lesson either). “We encourage you to grow all the food that you feasibly can on your own property.” he said “Berry bushes, grapevines, fruit trees—plant them if your climate is right for their growth. Grow vegetables and eat them from your own yard.” he said “Even those residing in apartments … can generally grow a little food in pots and planters. Study the best methods of providing your own foods. Make your garden … neat and attractive as well as productive. If there are children in your home, involve them in the process with assigned responsibilities.” – Spencer W. Kimball, April GC 1976

He had a way of driving things home, and he spoke to my young heart. He reminded us of the scripture in Luke 6:46 “Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” He had me. And yet, as that summer ended we were back in another apartment, Dan going to school. Though we had tried to have a garden twice, there we were. Friends generously shared of their excess: cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini and other produce, and I marveled at the bounty in my kitchen. I mused this blessing over with a friend one day, saying that I believed we enjoyed more produce this month than we ever could have harvested from our little garden. My wise friend Shirley said “It is because of your garden that you are being blessed this way.“ She pointed out the principle of obedience. That promise that when we obey a law, we receive the blessings associated with it. Plain and simple according to her. The prophet said “plant a garden” – we had. The circumstances surrounding the fact that we didn’t harvest it were incidental. The principle stood. She bore testimony to me in her straight forward way, that I could count on that principle for all the days of my life. “There is a law irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated. And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which is is predicated.” (D&C 130:20,21) THAT WAS THE LESSON. I didn’t know it then, but my life changed that day. I had seen the fruit of the principle with my own two eyes. And yes, Shirley was right, I had planted a garden. Pitiful though it may have been, I had been obedient. I had tried my best to obey. That was all that mattered. God is in the details. He doesn’t ask us to feed five thousand. He asks merely that we bring our loaves and fishes to the picnic. Thank-you Shirley Clelland, for being such a wise friend and such a patient mentor.

I was no longer a girl. I was a mother. With the responsibility now to take care of my little one. And as a mother, there was one thing I knew I wanted – NEEDED. Yearned for. To obtain blessings from God. Which blessings? All of them. And I now knew how to access them. Obey the laws upon which they are predicated. “I the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.” (D&C 82:10) I could think of nothing I wanted more than to have the Lord bound to me, and I committed myself that day to do whatever it took to accomplish that.

There are many lessons I learned from my garden over the years, but they all began from that first one – which was that any good thing must start with a DESIRE to do that good thing. Hearts can change on a dime. I’ve seen it happen. But behaviour takes time. Don’t expect to BE everything in the beginning. Start with the desire to ‘be’. And work from there. Alma summed it up in his sermon to the Zoramites: “But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than DESIRE to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.” (Alma 32:27)

The next few blog posts will follow the theme of Lessons I learned from my Garden.
I hope you’ll join me. I would love to hear your comments, and your own experiences about lessons learned ‘from’ or ‘in’ your own garden.

Warmly,

Cindy Suelzle