I just finished lunch. It was the first lunch I've had with just goods from my garden! Tomatoes and cucumbers. Well, and mozzarella cheese--which I didn't grow--but anyway, the vegetables were great!
It got me thinking about my garden.
Several months ago, I finally realized that after a year of waiting for Baby #3 to join us, that it wasn't going to happen on my timeline. This joined a large stack of growing concerns that I couldn't control--my four year old's lack of obedience no matter what I did, my two year old's lack of speech, and now this. Mostly this. I knew for sure that the other two problems would...eventually... solve themselves probably. This might not.
As we've bounced around seeing various doctors, ultrasound techs, lab results, etc, I've started to lose hope that this will ever happen for us again. Even though part of me knows it will. It's just too painful to think about sometimes. I worry sometimes about turning into the bitter, angry, and sad 19-22 yr old who dealt with all this before. But luckily for me, I have too many things to do and accomplish than sit around and feel sorry for myself. Most of the time anyway.
During that initial realization a few months ago, I felt a prompting. Start a garden. The winter weather was finally starting to dissipate, and I felt that it would be good for me to get out in the sun everyday and work on something productive.
So I packed up my boys and headed to Lowe's, with advice from my visiting teacher Erika about how best to do it. And I've loved my little garden ever since. It has felt wonderful to get outside and check that garden every morning. The boys and I got excited every time a new seedling sprouted, or a flower opened, or a cucumber seemed to appear out of nowhere.
And as I watered and thinned and pruned and trimmed and tended, my mind found answers. Answers about waiting; answers about fruits of our labors; answers about spiritual nourishment; answers about faith; and most importantly, answers about hope. My little garden had so many analogies that applied to my life at this very moment. And it helped to fill the void and block the pain of my own inability to produce life within myself--to bear fruit in other ways, and then to know that I did it. That I can grow things and nurture them into life.
My squash and zucchini were the first to produce fruit. We saw the tiny fruit and got so excited. But then a few days later, they would dry up and fall off. I turned to the internet and found out it was a product of poor pollination. And because I was having an especially emotional day, I cried. Are you joking me? This garden was supposed to be therapeutic for this whole infertility thing, and now I find out my squash plant is INFERTILE?!
Then I started laughing instead. Because really, it was rather funny and ironic. So I learned how to pollinate them myself since apparently the birds and the bees weren't doing a good enough job. And I laughed to myself thinking: Well, isn't this all sounding familiar....
But in those peaceful moments, outside with my boys, looking at the fruits of my labors, I've felt assurance. I know that I'm doing everything I can spiritually and physically to bring this wonderful blessing to pass. We've asked several members of our family to keep us in their prayers continually; we've fasted; family members have put us on the prayer roll at the temple; we've serve faithfully in our callings at church; we're good friends; we're good parents; we teach our children the Gospel; we read scriptures together; we pray together. And so I know it must be for some greater purpose. This is the Lord's will in my life right now since I am living righteously and nothing has changed. And I know that someday it will all make sense. It always has in the past.
So we'll just continue to nourish the faith and hope that we already have.
And eat dang good tomatoes in the meantime. :)
