God gives a garden

One of the ways I find peace during this pandemic has been tending my plants in the community garden I am a part of. But it’s not just a garden. This garden has a story specifically about God providing so much good, at the exact, right time. I love this story.

The story begins with panic. I had just finished The Crash Course, a video docuseries by Peak Prosperity. I was sincerely and completely freaked out. This series, produced in 2014, rocked my world. It was the kind of thing that made me wish I didn’t know all this scary info, but I knew in my heart I was meant to know it. I HAD to know it. This information was going to save our life someday. And fast forward to 2020… it has.

Without going into the gory details of The Crash Course (watch it, but only if you are ready to get prepared), the basic premise was that we are facing a crash of exponential proportions in every area of our lives. Chris Martenson and Adam Taggert, founders of Peak Prosperity, backed everything up with data that was undeniable. I think I might’ve had PTSD from that series if it wasn’t for their follow-up book, Prosper. Thank GOD they wrote Prosper!

In the book Prosper, my biggest takeaway was that one of the most valuable assets in your life is your network. The authors wrote about building connections to the people who could physically (and mentally) help you in a crisis. For example, If the food is in short supply at the grocery, what farmers do you know? But they also posed this question: If you know farmers, what kind of relationship do you have with them now? They encouraged that time to get friendly and supportive is not during the crisis, it’s way before the crisis. That idea hit home… specifically regarding farmers. I know some farmers!!!

Wouldn’t you know it (God wink), just about the time I finished the book Prosper, and was urgently bugging the @$%& out of my husband to join me on my new prepper mission, Grow Local South Texas posted a call for volunteers to help establish some new beds in their learning garden. I asked Ryan if we could take the family to volunteer, explaining that lending a hand was the best way to re-engage with our farmer friends we hadn’t hung out with in years. He agreed.

As we were volunteering at the learning garden, raking, planting, and sweating our butts off on the hottest day of the year, I looked around and had a vision of doing the same thing with our church family. We had asked about having a plot at the learning garden, but they weren’t set up for that. Asking around, I realized there weren’t any active community gardens going on at the time in our area. So I started day dreaming of how we could maybe establish a community garden with our church family.

I called our pastor’s wife, Kristin Lescalleet, and told her about the vision I had and what Prosper had taught me. She was thrilled, and revealed that having a community garden had been on her heart as well. She asked me to put together a plan to present to the church. It took me about three hours one evening to put the plan together. (If you are interested in my plan, I’ve posted it here.) There is SO MUCH online. I sent her the plan and Kristin helped get it out to the congregation via email, and it was announced during a service. It was so exciting! Then… NOTHING happened!

Months went by. Nothing. I called Kristin to see what we should do. We discussed that we hadn’t really “asked” anyone for anything. We had just presented the idea. So I agreed to put together a “needs” list and we’d put a call out to the church. TWO DAYS LATER (God wink), I was at a meeting with the Convention and Visitors Bureau about a different project. In that meeting with Heidi Hovda, a long-time friend and colleague, she said, “hey, I hear you are looking for a garden.”

This was late 2016. Heidi told me about a community garden that was now basically abandoned, that had been started in 2012 by superwomen Stacie Talbert Anaya (now in Lewisville, TX), Heidi, and Jessica Savage (now a lead investigative reporter and news anchor in Savannah, GA) from a grant from Miracle Grow with the City of Corpus Christi. The garden area was fenced in, situated between the Lindale recreation and senior centers, and had 32, 4’x8′ raised beds, with water provided by the city, a shed full of supplies including plant food and bug killer, plus several thousand dollars left in a bank account to be used on the garden. And it could all be ours through an “adopt a park” agreement with the city. The only strings were that it couldn’t be “too churchy” and we had to let in gardeners from the community. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Talk about a gift from God. Yes, please.

I got a commitment from the church and some gardeners, we signed the paperwork, got approval to spend the money on soil, and went to work. It took three, hard, hard days to get the garden back in shape. Some weeds were above our heads. But it was worth it. It was exciting. And I felt like I was actually doing something to prepare and provide for my family, and “hedge” ourselves against an impending crisis (like that garden humor? ha ha!). Success!

The story doesn’t quite end there…

Two years later, after harvesting the most delicious cantaloupes I’ve ever eaten, I stopped gardening and gave away our plots because we had moved too far away (temporarily living in our Padre Island vacation rental condo while we renovated a house). I definitely felt the void of not having the garden, and especially the lack of peace the garden provided. But that would soon change.

With the pandemic getting worse, I had another panic moment – this time at Home Depot. I panic-bought a bunch of vegetable plants, but without a plan. Ryan had already told me he thought it wasn’t a good idea to get back into the garden while we were so far away. “As soon as all this is over, you’ll be super busy and have to give it up anyway,” he said. Plus, we had big plans for gardening at the new house and he suggested we just start assembling that (which might take months). I thought he was probably right on the logistics, but had this nagging feeling like the pandemic was EXACTLY the reason I had pursued the garden in the first place! I struggled with major guilt, unable to think of much else, as I had essentially gone against Ryan’s wishes and bought plants in stealth, hiding them at our new house, which was still under construction. I finally caved under the guilt, and told him of my sneakiness. He wasn’t happy with how I went about it, but in the end (with my great debate skills and encouragement from our counselor), he made peace with it.

Originally, when pastor Dave and Kristin Lescalleet had embraced the garden idea (they’ve since moved to Atlanta), we talked about the garden being a source for community outreach and could be a ministry in itself. Between all our own commitments, and figuring out how to garden (I knew nothing, when my veggies grew I counted it as a miracle), we had all been too busy to satisfy the “outreach” part of the garden, even though we had a few community members come and go.

This last week, a new gardener in the community reached out via facebook to see if there were plots available. I said yes, and we finally got together (6 feet apart of course) to go over which plot she wanted and all the details of the garden. As we were finishing up, she said, “hey, I wanted to ask you about City Church.”

Turns out, this new gardener, who we’ll call Alice, said she had been to City Church years ago, but had left after the new pastor joined because everything seemed different. I sat with her for over an hour (getting sunburnt) talking and talking about my experience watching the church grow and change ever since we officially joined in 2010 when Stella was about 6 months old. She told me of uncertainty with the church being diverse (mostly couples – she’s single) and worry about a focus on international ministry when she felt we should be focusing more on community (I tend to agree). We had an amazing conversation, talking about everything under the sun. I feel like I have an open-minded perspective on “church things,” being a fairly new Christian, after being raised by hippies who taught me that Love Rules. Maybe that is why I have a gift of connecting to anyone, from any walk of life.

By the end of our conversation (God wink), Alice was ready to give City Church another try (once we’d be allowed to congregate again). We talked about a cause she champions, and that there was a specific family who loved the same charity! I encouraged her to bring her ideas to church leadership. With a few member’s supporting her, she could get the church to stand with her and bring those missions into the fold. I told her that like with anything, she can’t expect others to make it happen. The church, even with many members, is always in need of the “doer.” She has the power to make it happen. I could help her make connections to the community when she was ready.

What a great day of God providing a way to relieve my stress and use the garden to connect and help another human find peace and community.

God provides. God is good. All of the time.

Thank you God for providing the garden and providing the push to prepare for my family and the community. Thank you God for providing a way to connect with others. I am so grateful!

*If you are interested in a plot, email me. Find The Edge Garden at Lindale Park by City Church on facebook.