The Gardner

I recall several years ago my therapist asking me what should have been a very simple question. It wasn't anything that a person would have to think long and hard about. It wasn't technical and it wasn't something that required my analytical skills. She asked me, "What does happiness look like for you"? In my head I felt disfunction or malfunction, my thoughts became a bit chaotic. I couldn't even say what happiness was. I had no point of reference. I had been in a state of severe depression since I was at least 12 years old, with one instance of interest in my mental health state shown from a caregiver who had been generally dismissive up to that point and was now genuinely concerned to no avail. By then life had seemed to get worse each year despite my best efforts to change its course - self registering for programs and extra-curricular activities. I was a Christian to the core of me with everything I could muster, and I'd like to think that alone kept me alive on several occasions. The ramblings of my mind were a normal, regular, and draining part of my existence, and this is how far I had gone with the very simple question I had been asked by my therapist. I finally responded and told her, "I don't know. I've had moments where I experienced happiness? Or maybe it was joy, but I don't know what a happy life would look like." After I made my confession, I immediately became sad. I had lived most of my life in chronic depression, and I cried almost every - single - day. And no one knew. I relived in my mind being bullied, rejected, assaulted, and witnessing some of the worst kinds of assaults every day - something that I later learned was one of several symptoms that I experienced as a result of PTSD. I became withdrawn, quiet and antisocial, and the one thing no one knew is that I wanted to die. Every thought was of the unkindness, false blame, and humiliation that I experienced whether in school, by relatives and caregivers, or the many racists neighbors that lived in our suburban neighborhood. Life was dark, very dark. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. There was a pit, or a grave and that's it.

 

It took 6 years of bi-weekly therapy sessions after 10 plus prior years of off and on therapy, and divine intervention tying my hands before I recognized God saying to me by way of life unfolding, it is enough now - go and live. I had grown up in church and devoted my life on my own to God in my teen years. I headed ministries, worked in the church, prayed with hurting people, and even led hearts in the prayer of salvation. I then watched them soar and thrive in life, and no one seemed to notice that I was suffering - in the "church". And suffering alone. I was 38 years old, and my youth was gone. 38 and I had never sought after anything that might have actually made me happy. Up until that point, I felt cursed - but I wasn't. I suffered from what many of people do.  A lack of love and support, abuse at the hands of those who were supposed to protect us, and unintentional self-destruction in attempts to fill those holes. 

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The year I turned 38 I began losing people - a lot of people whom I loved and thought were friends, and some that I knew whose roles had ended in my story.  I experienced what I now know was an awakening. I began having more invasive supernatural experiences. I had, had them since I was a child - but never like this. All the spiritual gifts that I was given became substantively heightened to a level that if I hadn't shared certain details with my confidants as proof, no one would have believed me. Something was happening to me, and it wasn't bad, it was like walking in the wilderness and arriving at an intersection not knowing which direction to go and receiving clarity - like Cyclops in X-Men. It was as though it was just time. Time for something new. It was time for God to fulfill his part of the promise. I followed the inclinations I received, one of which was to plant a garden after asking God what I could do for Him in gratitude for all He had done for me - I wanted to offer something to Him, I'd come so far despite the challenges and painful events of my past and I wanted to do something that would be lasting and impactful. So, I did. Having no experience or knowledge of gardening, I sought out resources to teach me - as you will find I have had to do in every area of life. At this point, I hadn't been in depression for somewhere around one to two years, since I was 12 years old - with no medication. The moment I started planting, a part of me seemed to come alive and the Lord's essence was revealed to me in a new way. Every day I watered, I fertilized as needed and tended to my plants and garden beds, and their sizes doubled almost it seemed like every two days- sometimes it seemed like overnight. It was otherworldly to witness. Every time I touched the soil something in me healed. Like a part of me came back alive with intention and purpose. Almost as though the Earth was absorbing years of sorrow, trauma, and disappointment.

 

It didn't take me long to settle in me that the plants appeared as an outward manifestation of what was happening in me.

 

It's almost like the woman in Revelations 12:15-16:

 

..." And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth."