Boyd’s Garden

Boyd’s garden was an amazing site. People drove slowly while passing by just to admire it. The meticulously straight rows didn’t have a weed or rock in sight. If you were to ask my husband about that, he’d say that’s because he and his siblings spent hours pulling weeds.

 When it was harvest time there was always more than enough for Margaret to can or freeze to feed the family for a year or more and bountiful enough to share with others. I never saw any tomatoes the size and color of those that grew in my father-in-law’s garden.  The ears of white corn were always sweet, tender and juicy.  The potatoes looked like large, smooth rocks when they were ready to be dug up.

 A harvest like that doesn’t just happen. It takes lots of work. And much of that work began long before planting season. The soil needed to be tilled. In the fall, he’d “plow it under” to create compost and fertilize the soil over the winter. Then late winter and early spring he would start tilling the soil again to prepare it for planting. The plow would always break up the clods of dirt and turn up the rocks that would interfere with the vegetables taking on deep roots.  You’d think after all those years of gardening in the same spot there wouldn’t be a clod of dirt or a rock left to turn up and get out of the garden. It just seemed like the soil should be as fine as grains of sand. But the long, idle months actually made the soil hard and packed down. In order to produce an abundant harvest, it had to be tilled multiple times prior to each planting season.

 The Scriptures are full of illustrations of farming, preparing the soil, pulling up weeds, rocks, thorns and thistles from the soil of our hearts. Psalm 37:3 tells us to “dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness;” work the soil, till it up so there can be an abundant harvest.

 In order for my life to be fruitful, I must break up the soil of my heart and get rid of anything that would get in the way of growth.  Sin needs to be broken up and removed from my heart and life in order to live a fruitful life.  Hosea 10:12 says, “Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the LORD, till He comes and rains righteousness on you.”

Breaking up fallow ground is hard work, especially when it’s the rocky, fruitless soil of my heart. There was a time in my life when the process went on for months. I wanted to experience the joy of personal revival in my life. So I began the process of breaking up the fallow ground of my heart. There were days when I cried out to God saying, “Please Lord, STOP! This hurts too much! I can’t do it anymore. Don’t ask me to plow through the rocky soil another day!” But those very tears that I shed seemed to be the gentle healing rain that He promised to pour out “on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground” (Isa. 44:3). The fallow ground of my heart was being cultivated. I was forever removing rocks and thorns and thistles from the very ground of my heart that I so desperately wanted to produce the fruit of righteousness.  All the tilling and crying out to God, brought about fruit, a bountiful harvest and a deep desire for righteousness.   I’m grieved over the wasted years and the sin that I allowed to so easily entangle me and created such fallow ground in my heart. But I’m forever grateful that I have a God who has chosen to dwell in this broken, revived heart!

 Margaret went home to be with the Lord in 1986. Boyd stayed on in the home they built together and kept gardening until the homestead was sold several years ago. His mind is fading with Alzheimer’s and is living in an Alzheimer’s Home. If he were able to talk with you today with a clear mind, he’d tell you how much work gardening was and how he came to hate it at times. But he would also tell you of the joys the bountiful harvest brought.

I miss Boyd’s garden.

You can visit Marsha over at Marsha’s Musings.

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