A Time to Sow ~ 10 Ways We Can Share the Joy of Sowing Seeds

Sowing a packet of seeds is like sprinkling encouragement and fairy dust throughout my very own plot of dreams.

JC (That’s me)

If sharing = caring, how can we sow more joy?

1. Embrace the time of sowing

I love to get my hands dirty and sow flower and vegetable seeds in nutritious soil, but a beautiful, mature garden doesn’t appear overnight. That thought brings visions of thorns pricking my sometimes-impatient side. It’s been said that a gardener’s work is never done. I know the truth behind that phrase and another, too: There’s a time to reap and a time to sow.

Some good things take time (like growing snowdrops from seed). I’m learning to embrace—and share the joyous process of each step of this worthwhile journey.

2. Expect new life

Although many labor-intensive or tedious tasks aren’t always fun, I know the reward is worth my effort and will reach further than the borders of my backyard. We gardeners don’t just sit idle waiting for growth.

I expect and believe as with all things worth waiting for, the best is yet to come. There will be plenty of time to watch flowers grow, so for now, it’s time to sow.

3. Share the love of life-giving water

Plants may contain 80-90% water essential for photosynthesis, cooling, converting, or transporting nutrients from the earth into a living plant. Although we can grow crops without fossil fuels, we can’t grow anything without water.

While water is necessary to sustain life, it means more to us than our earthly minds can conceive. By weight, approximately 60% of the typical human body is H2O. We can’t survive without it. We are drawn to it. Water heals, nourishes, and even calms our souls.

… The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

John 4:13-14

4. Appreciate nature

Nature is a huge part of my existence. I don’t worship it. My praise goes to the creator.

Here’s what the Bible says about nature:

Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad…

Psalm 96:11-12

5. Become a birdwatcher

I believe birdwatching and listening to their unique songs affect our lives in many positive ways. Well-documented facts include a reduction in anxiety, depression, and stress. It’s as if God said, I’ll send them happiness in the form of feathery flying friends to brighten their overstimulated brains.

Thank you, God.

6. Enjoy the process of sowing, telling, and reaping

Thoughts of gardening or the fruit of my effort seldom overwhelm me. It’s where I meet with my unseen Creator and, oftentimes, where I believe He wants me to be. Sure, it’s what I choose to do.

In all truth, when it comes down to naming my first God-given passion, gardening and writing have wrestled for first place. There are wheelbarrows and bookshelves overflowing with evidence all around me. They were both part of me from the beginning.

7. Tell that story

Yes. I’ve said it. It’s always been gardening (of some sort), and yes, maybe I enjoy the process of working in the dirt more than writing. It’s not like gardening is easy. It involves strenuous, back-wrenching daily commitment and hard work.

When I look back over the years, I see how my gardens have become part of me—and my story. I mourned for my parents while tending gardens in Florida and healed from the emotional effects of cancer in my woodland garden here in North Carolina.

His mercies are new every morning.

Lamentations 3:22-23

Likewise, writing isn’t always an outlet or a comfort. The many stages that lead to completing a project can be compared to mud wrestling. The work is ongoing. We keep digging and penning until we obtain what we’re meant to reap, and sometimes, it’s not what we had hoped it would be.

8. Understand the magical way all our fail years help us grow

While raking or tilling a rocky, clay-ridden plot or sowing seeds, shrubs, or saplings can often lead to a sore neck or shoulders, it’s not the same kind of hurt. Some wounds go deeper regardless of the cause.

These scars are worth bearing even when the growing pains of what we perceive as personal or professional failures or fail years threaten to cripple us in many ways.

Growth can come from intense pain. A million or so tears later, I can say I’ve learned to trust God’s ways even when I don’t understand.  

The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.

Marcel Proust

9. Remember the author of all things gardening and the offering

While I embrace the deity of God the Father as the unseen Author and Creator of all that is or ever was, I equally embrace His son, Jesus, as my Savior and King.

• God, the Author, and Gardener.
• Jesus, the Story, and Sustainer. (See Colossians 1:17)

I don’t mention this for the sake of only adding analogy to my thoughts on gardening or how beneficial it is for us to understand the relevance of working with our hands, cause, and effect, or just how much the word sacrifice impacts us daily.

I’ve studied the scriptures, and my faith has held me through many storms. Jesus allowed himself to be broken. His side was pierced until his blood became like rain—and in turn, He became the deepest spring of life-giving water so I could live.

Easter week is coming. The thought overwhelms me.

Why didn’t He run? Instead, He chose—while living as an average man—to let the seeds sown by His Father God fall where they may.

10. Trust and Reap joy throughout the seasons

Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t remember Old Man Winter waving goodbye before the end of March. Dutch iris and daffodils are blooming. After my recent trip south to Florida, I found myself peeling layers of frost cloth off my courtyard borders a month earlier than expected.

Let’s just say Lady Spring has all but knocked down my back door. Who told Mother Nature I, like my garden, am craving rejuvenation? Hope. New life. More opportunities. A time to sow. (Don’t worry, I know they’re only seasons).

Have you ever considered the many ways we can share the joy of sowing seeds?

In good times and bad, whenever I search deeper within my circumstances, I’m reminded there’s always a time to sow ~10 ways we can share the joy of sowing seeds and the additional themes listed below only serve as a mini field guide—All are where I need to sow more so I can grow:

• Love
• Wisdom
• Inner Beauty
• Forgiveness
• Happiness
• Contentment
• Kindness
• Courage
• Mindfulness
• Legacy

Father God, Help me never forget the most important things in life are meaningless if I—and we—can’t sow and share Your love. May it move us with compassion to care.

It’s time.

…The new has come.

. 2 Corinthians 5:17

I’d love to hear your thoughts and stories. Does sowing and reaping and all things gardening inspire you to share and grow? Don’t forget to join the conversation here in the Inspire a Fire comments section below this post. Want to read more stories like this? Click the highlighted links above or visit my Dreamdove’s Flights of Fancy blog & DoveStories Website.

Wishing you joy on your journey and many Easter blessings,

JC

*Special Thanks: All images courtesy of Pixabay. Featured image artists: Peggychoucair, GLady, JillWellington, SushiHue.