Grace’s Garden

I’ve always enjoyed the fruits of others’ gardens, but never really planted one of my own. I’m sure the grass or flower seeds that I planted in a paper cup in kindergarten sprouted, but I never stayed focused on their growth and health long enough to remember. I don’t even pay enough attention to the potted plants in my office to notice their need for water. If it weren’t for Jennie and others of you in the church, the pots in my office would cease to be organic, and would only qualify as a “dried arrangement.”

This doesn’t mean that I don’t think about and even sometimes dream about gardening. The other day, as I was daydreaming about what kind of garden I’d like to grow and tend, I tried to imagine the one fruit, vegetable, or flower that I could contribute to the lives of those around me—the one thing that we all need more of—I went through the usual suspects: tomatoes, squash, mint, basil, cilantro, beans, cucumbers, greens, lettuce. None of this produce, as tasty and important as it may be, really grabbed me.

That’s when it hit me. The one thing that we all need more of is grace! It’s the perennial that makes the world go ‘round, the nourishment that truly refreshes, the sustenance that makes everything not only possible, but worthwhile.

I’m going to pay more attention to watering, feeding, weeding, and sustaining grace at every turn. It’s going to be my garden project. Together we can water the grace that blesses our lives with our tears of joy and sorrow. We’ll feed it by celebrating the places it easters up in our lives. When chaos, confusion, and guilt choke out our grace-vision, we’ll pull those weeds so we’ll be able to see grace more clearly. Together we can sustain grace’s garden in our community.

It is a year-round, lifelong plant that’s already been over-sown in every nook and cranny of our lives. Grace is not an introductory offer. There is no time or circumstance for which its currency is insufficient; no thought or act beyond the reach of its healing salve; no cup or soul too broken to experience its overflow. It can be refused, but it will not be withdrawn.

Do you see it?

© 2009 Todd Jenkins