Adventures in Gardening ~ Growth

I wonder what it feels to be a seed. A little germ of life tucked into the rich, warm, darkness of soil; life imprinted into my very DNA. Would I be surprised to find my little head poking up into the dazzling sunlight? Would my little green arms lift up in worship, instinctively, because that's what I was created to do?

Tiny watermelon plant

I feel a bit like my little garden seeds stirring to life, waking up to the season of spring. Just when I think I've got this spiritual growth thing figured out another season awaits me right around the bend. I'm thankful. It's really quite an adventure, though often unexpected. Each truth builds upon the last. Each encounter with the living Truth strips back a layer of flesh, leaving me stinging and exhilarated that he would rid me of my useless dead ways and bring to life divine nature in this erratic heart.

I thought I would talk about sisterhood and mentoring for years, that it would be the drum I'd beat for many seasons. And in a way it still is, but the path has shifted and my view has expanded. I find that mentoring relationships, the sisterhood, is a facet of a prism so much more dynamic and brilliant than I could have imagined. Unity. It's what we were made for, oneness with God and with each other. Certainly that's lived out in sister relationships, but unity takes on so many forms. Unity, known and expressed in truth and love, is something I'm digging more deeply into.

I love mentoring. There's little else that excites me as much as connecting on a heart level with other women in the truth of Jesus. I love praying with, caring for, and shepherding women in their own walks with Christ; and I'm so blessed when a godly woman offers to care for me and point me to Jesus too. But this move has shifted my relationships and focus. I used to spend hours, enough to fill a part time work week, mentoring. Now I truly mentor only one young woman. I still seek to encourage many different women through the week in general. And I hope to establish more mentoring relationships over time in our new home, but I also sense God deepening my woman's bent to nurture in a unique way.

The promise of fruit on my little tomato plant

God is beginning to enrich my life with the care not only of younger Christian women but also with the desire to love the broken children of Serbia. It's not a season I had anticipated. But as my head raises to the light of the Sun I adore I feel my fresh arms clap in delight. Where this adventure will take me is beyond my comprehension but one thing I know I don't want to do it alone!

What area of your life is God unexpectedly growing you in? How do you draw other women into the journey you are on?