Living in the California drought made it hard to grow anything in our backyard. As a child, I would stare at the dirt and boulders that inclined nearly vertical from our porch, making it difficult to grow anything successfully. It made me envious of people who could grow a luscious garden. I secretly hid in my heart the desire to one day grow a beautiful garden of my own.
As I set off for college in a new town and a new state, I carried this desire with me like a seed waiting to be planted. The moment I got a place of my own, you can bet I bought a bunch of plants to decorate the place, daydreaming of gardens and flipping through Better Homes & Gardens magazines, imagining what my life could be like one day.
However, the daydreams were soon clouded by conflict that slowly crawled its way into my life, shaking up nearly every relationship I had. Suddenly, everything I knew and the memories I held so dear were being stripped away. The future I imagined for my life was changing drastically. Day by day, I seemed to fall lower and lower, losing any sense of control or stability I had in my relationships.
I finally hit rock bottom and could not see a way out.
Day after day, I cried out in prayer, but was met with complete silence on the other side. Once again, I envisioned my beautiful garden and prayed that my family could grow into this enchanting Eden that I had envisioned in my mind. God could make the impossible possible. He could take a broken family and make it into something new. He could grow new life from our broken hearts.
But it never came.
I graduated from my university, got married, and left town. We moved on to a new place, and I was ready to move on in my heart. In all honesty, I stopped praying. There was a stretch of time where I simply did not know what to say to God anymore. He listened, sure, but he did not answer–not in the way I wanted. It was done and over. I was left with nothing of the life I knew before and had to put it all behind me.
As time rolled on, I began to pray again. Although I was not quite sure what needed to be said, I slowly felt the weeds being pulled from my heart and the ground beneath me being tilled. I finally heard Him answer in subtle words: You needed to reach the bottom before I could build you back up.
My prayer returned for God to somehow work this family into a beautiful garden. I knew it made no sense. We would never be what we once were. It was just as impossible as it had been before. But this time, I trusted that God would design His garden the way he had planned, in His time.
As years passed, He answered prayer. There were apologies and mending that began to weave its way through our lives, as if seeds were finally being planted to grow this garden. Things were not as they were and never would be. It was different, but it was nevertheless good. The moment I realized God was working in this garden–creating something beautiful out of something so broken– was when our daughter was born. My childhood family had reconciled, and though we were separated, we were learning to grow together into a garden. The first bloom was my daughter, Rosie. It was as if God had said, Here is the beginning of your garden, Annie. In my time, I will make all things new.
I hold fast to this promise everyday, delighting in His garden and His beauty in every moment. I could have never fathomed what he could do in my life and how He could restore something so broken and make it new–in His way and in His time. Not in my way or by my standards, but through His amazing and unfailing love.
Words by: Annie Thweatt Rogers, class of 2014
