In the Garden: Learning to Embrace the Mess
When a waiter asks, “Inside or out?” I instinctively choose inside. It’s how I’ve lived most of my life—within four walls, comforted by control, sheltered from the chaos I couldn’t predict. Messiness was something to be managed or avoided entirely.
I never considered myself an “outdoors girl.” Growing up in the deep South, summer meant gnats, sunburns, and mosquitoes—not exactly a dreamy aesthetic. Even now, on the most beautiful days, I prefer a sun-drenched window seat to the unpredictability of the outside.
But during my time in discipleship school, I was invited into a rhythm that included tending to our garden. A spiritual discipline masked as a task. I internally resisted, dreading dirt under my nails, and silently wished for a more refined assignment. But something in me knew: there was a gift waiting on the other side of my discomfort.
So, in true Victoria fashion, I volunteered to water—easy enough, right?
It was there, watering soil under the southern sun, that I felt the gentle nudge of God. “Ask Me how to see this differently,” He whispered. And so I did.
What if what I’ve always longed for lived on the other side of the mess?
As I stood in that garden, I began to see my own heart mirrored in the earth before me. If I feared getting my hands dirty—pulling weeds, tilling soil, feeling the sting of sun and sweat—how was I tending to the garden within me?
The heart is a garden. It needs tending. Daily.
Scripture says that out of the heart, the mouth speaks. So I asked myself: What is the fruit of my life saying about the condition of my soil? Is it glossy and impressive but bitter at the root? Or is it bearing the kind of fruit that nourishes—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control?
The garden revealed it all: beauty alongside brokenness. Overgrown areas where I hadn’t dared to look. Trees that blocked light. I saw how I had let certain parts of my heart go untended. And just when I felt overwhelmed—tempted to scrap it all and start fresh—I saw Jesus.
Not frustrated. Not disappointed. But smiling, with a shovel in hand, ready to begin right where we were.
Nothing wasted. No moment overlooked. No pain ignored.
In the stillness of that moment, I began to see God differently—not as a distant critic, but as a present and joyful gardener. With gloved hands and endless patience, He delighted in the process, with me and not apart from me.
It broke something open in me.
Deliverance often begins in honesty—with repentance and a turning of the heart back to the One who’s always been tending it.
For years, I believed God stood on the sidelines of my life, arms crossed, voice raised. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. He’s in it all. In the process, the questions, the beauty, and the unknown.
He’s the covenant-keeping God. Faithful to finish what He starts. Intentional with every seed.
And I’m learning a new way—one that welcomes the mess, embraces the tension, and finds beauty not in perfection, but in presence.
So I ask you—how will you tend to your garden today?
What is the Lord showing you?
