“Build us houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens and eat the fruit of them.” Jeremiah 29:5

I’ve been spending a lot of time at the local garden centers these days. Based on the number of people in the parking lots and crowded aisles on busy Saturday mornings, perhaps some of you have as well! I always look forward to this time of year to work on our vegetable garden, purchase annuals to fill our flower pots, and watch the landscape turn from brown to bright green with bright pops of colored blossoms. As our children grow older, I am storing memories of their evolving roles in this process year after year, and it excites me that they love spending time together doing this work.

My preschool daughter is especially ecstatic about the beautiful flower colors this year, and I hope I never forget my view of her sitting inside the big part of the shopping cart and excitedly saying, “Wow, everything is so beautiful!” as we strolled up and down aisles taking time for her to carefully make her selections (mostly pink and purples this year, her favorite). I’m especially eager to add these colors to our porch right now, as our lawn has other plans. We are already on round two of trying to convince some grass seed to grow in the bare areas out front – of course the portion of our yard where people drive by and walk by is the most dreadful looking.

Just when I find myself being frustrating or feel like I’m wasting time or money, our 2nd grade son who is our right-hand-man setting up the hose, sprinkler, and running to the back of the house to turn the water on, often lifts my spirits with the joyful example he sets for me. His main focus the past few years is his vegetable garden in the backyard. To care for it this year, he even planted some extra cover crop seed over the soil before winter (borrowed from grandpa’s farm last fall), and saved a gift card from Christmas to spend at springtime to purchase seed starting supplies and seed packets. He’s been watering and growing seeds in our kitchen windowsill that he excitedly planted during spring break. He’s been monitoring the weather, watching for the last freeze date, eagerly awaiting the right time to get these precious plant starts in the ground. The time came, he planted, watered for a few days, and we all watched those little green sprouts shrivel up and turn brown. My heart was breaking for all his hard work, but yet while he was bewildered, he was not frustrated, and instead declared that we should just make yet another trip to the garden center and purchase some bigger plant starts and try those out.

He skipped over the pouting part – unlike me – I’ve done plenty of pouting about the state of our lawn, yet while we are both experiencing failures, his optimism is much more admirable than mine. His child-like faith feels wise beyond his years and I’m thankful that God opened my eyes to see and appreciate not only the beautiful flowers through the eyes of my daughter but also resilience through the eyes of my son.