Category: Growing Things

Signposts of God’s Faithfulness

~ Joy O'Toole ~ Leave a comment
My rogue daffodils

Have I ever mentioned my rogue daffodils? They are God’s reminder to me each spring that

no matter the trials in my life,
in whatever circumstances I’m living,
wherever He is calling me to live by faith and not by sight,
I can grow and thrive and bloom because I abide in Christ and bear fruit in Him.

Years ago, daffodils grew along the path from our driveway to our front porch. Most of them had been covered over with so much soil that the only thing that grew were the green leaves. So my husband decided to dig them up and get rid of them. He threw them in a large heap of dirt and debris leftover from some construction work in our backyard. Later that summer, we had the mound of trash hauled away, forgetting about those daffodils.

The next March I looked out of the back window in my bookroom and to my delight, a stand of daffodils were popping up in the grass where that hill of dirt had been. They apparently had worked their way down into the soil and waited for their time to shine.

Every day, I peered out the window to enjoy the sight of these glorious daffodils in the middle of our lawn. Eventually, the flowers withered and my husband declared that they couldn’t stay there in the middle of the lawn. So he dug them up again and threw them in the back corner of our yard. An easement runs there and because we can’t do much with that spot, it has turned into a catch-all for gardening stuff, old Christmas trees, and piles of wood and sticks. Again, we forgot about the daffodils in a back corner we rarely entered.

Lo and behold, the next year those daffodils popped up again in the middle of debris and weeds and sticks!. This time I told my husband that they obviously belonged in our yard if they were that determined to bloom no matter how many times he threw them away. They stayed, and each year, when they bloom, I am reminded that God takes our circumstances—the garbage, the piles of sticks, the cracked wheelbarrows, the weeds—and He strengths and nourishes us so that we bloom right in that spot. Rogue means something or someone that doesn’t behave in an expected way, which describes the little flowers that were determined to grow no matter how many times they were discarded.

These daffodils are a witness, a signpost to God’s faithfulness and lovingkindness that I look forward to every year. It seems appropriate that they bloom every year right around Good Friday, when He took the darkest day in the history of the world and turned it into a glorious victory over sin and death. Even so, He will take our sins, our trials, our sufferings, and our pains and turn them into golden daffodils for His glory.

What signposts of God’s faithfulness do you have in your life today?

Interesting Articles and Podcasts

~ Joy O'Toole ~ 2 Comments

Each week, I send articles to a website that sends me a collection of articles to read in a single document for my kindle. This helps prevent me from falling down “rabbit holes” when I should be doing something productive but allows me to keep reading interesting things from around the web. Here are a few of the articles I’ve read this past month:

Jen Wilkin lists nine things to help in studying the Bible: https://www.crossway.org/articles/9-tips-for-making-the-most-of-your-bible-study/

Many of us are still working from home, which can make the work/home lines bleed together a bit too much at times. This article is a helpful look at the benefits of unplugging from work and other online pursuits: http://lauraearnest.com/unplugging/

While we are able to get out and about more these days, spending a couple of hours in a coffee shop may not be optimal or even possible. Here are ways to duplicate that experience of writing (or working) in a coffee shop: https://thewritelife.com/recreate-coffee-shop-experience-from-home/

Although I’ve been a Christian for many years, prayer is still difficult for me at times. Lectio Divina has been one way, through two prayer apps a friend suggested, to focus on the Lord each morning: https://www.24-7prayer.com/ancientprayerrhythms

My garden has never looked better since I’ve had more time at home to tend it. There’s something wonderfully healing about being outside in nature without a phone or other electronic device and dig: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/24/the-therapeutic-power-of-gardening

Reading has been a daily habit of mine for decades. However, I’m always reading articles and books on how to cram more reading time into my life. This article was great. https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-make-a-daily-habit-of-reading-more-books

I subscribe to several podcasts, some of which I listen to every single episode and some of which I dip into once in a while when the episode sounds applicable to my life or I want to know more. Here are some episodes I found particularly useful or interesting this past month:

Sarah from theshubox.com has started a new planner/planning podcast, which I love. Here’s her take on building a planning system: https://bestlaidplans.libsyn.com/rss

I just found the Redeeming Productivity podcast this summer and am slowly working my way through the back episodes. This recent episode was helpful in thinking about how contentment doesn’t have to interfere with ambition and productivity: https://www.redeemingproductivity.com/feed/podcast

I have loved all of the episodes of Help Me Teach the Bible with Nancy Guthrie, but I found this one especially fascinating as she talked to Andrew Sach about Elijah and Elisha and their foreshadowing of the New Testament: https://feeds.simplecast.com/TtKQNBCJ

Cal Newport, author of one of my favorite productivity books, Deep Work, started a new podcast this year. This is his kickoff episode. Don’t let the length scare you. He addresses multiple questions in each episode, which means you can listen for 10-20 minutes and then leave it until the next time without losing the thread of a discussion. I highly recommend this for anyone who wants to do focused knowledge work for their job or personal projects. His humor is a bit nerdy, which adds to the fun: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1121972.rss

When I’m trying to focus on work or writing, sometimes I need silence and sometimes background music helps. Eric Nordhoff is an artist I discovered recently, whose music is uplifting and great for focusing:

https://open.spotify.com/album/6co8Pt2GpcnqNa17Mbr77C?si=RagH7JKOTuibDTaX5kyeKQ

What are you reading and/or listening to this month?

Just around the corner

~ Joy O'Toole ~ 3 Comments

March is here along with the birds and the budding trees and flowers. Bulbs I planted last autumn are pushing up out of the ground. I can hardly wait to see what colors they will be!

Little birds twitter from the trees and hop along the ground in search of food while the geese are flying home. I see them resting in a nearby field as they stop on their long journey north. The air may be chilly yet, but the sun is warm, and the whole world is waking up.

A favorite book of mine is The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, one of the loveliest nature journals ever created. Each month has it’s own watercolor drawings and poems and notes on what is growing. I read this bit of verse this morning and thought it apt for the day: 

Now the North wind ceases;
The warm South-west awakes;
The heavens are out in fleeces
And earth's green banner shakes. 
--Geo. Meredith

Spring is just around the corner. What harbingers of the new season do you see today? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.

Gardens and Plans

~ Joy O'Toole ~ 1 Comment

 

March came in like a lion this year. The weather was cold and rain poured down all night. I sat inside my cozy little book room and chose to focus on the spring that is just around the corner. I ordered flowers in purple, red, yellow, and bright pink and then chose seeds–zinnias, hollyhocks, poppies, and Johnny Jump Ups–to fill the blank spaces in my perennial garden with splashes of color. The Johnny Jump Ups are in memory of my father’s mother, who always had them in her yard. I still remember her stooping down to point them out, telling me what those tiny little purple and yellow flowers were called.

Every year all those who know me learn how much I enjoy my garden. My husband digs holes and lugs big bags of compost around for me. My children patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) listen as I tell them the latest thing I’ve planted, how my rose bush is doing, and what’s blooming today. My rose bush is a continual source of amusement to my family as it causes me the most delight and angst every year.

I have had many gardens over the years. Presently I grow mostly flowers and herbs. In the past, I’ve had a large vegetable garden and potted plants on a fire escape, raised beds with herbs, and a tiny patch with a lavender bush and some annuals. Each garden has taught me lessons about patience, failure, hard work, and delight.

I consider myself blessed to have a lot of room at my house for growing things. I had never attempted a perennial border before, and the learning process has been steep and long. I’ve had spectacular successes and enormous failures. Even after carefully choosing plants and shrubs according to the amount of sunlight and type of soil, I didn’t always account for the variables to found within even a hundred feet of garden beds.

The joy of growing things, of watching seeds and tiny plants shoot up and flourish, of smelling the sweetness of flowers and herbs, and of feeding birds, butterflies, and bees more than makes up for the dead plants and difficulties involved.

Do you have a potted plant, an herb bed, a vegetable garden, or any other growing things at your home? If you do, please share with us what you grow. If you don’t, is a garden something you’ve dreamed of planting? I’d love to hear about your dreams and your plants.

Book Review: Roots and Sky: A Journey Home in Four Seasons by Christie Purifoy

~ Joy O'Toole ~ Leave a comment

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I finished reading Roots and Sky: A Journey Home in Four Seasons this afternoon and want to run out and shove this book into the hands of all of my friends. Instead, I will tell you all about this wonderful book and know that if you love it even half as much as I did, you will have a new favorite.

As I’ve been reading the book, I’ve been looking at her book suggestions on her blog, listening to some of her podcasts, and thinking, “Here is a kindred spirit.” She writes about many of the books I’ve loved and the thoughts I’ve thought and the truths I believe.  Plus, she celebrates and loves Advent and Christmas even more than I do.

Let me tell you a bit about the book. Christie Purifoy, her husband, and three children (plus one on the way) move into an old farmhouse called Maplehurst in late summer. The narrative follows their first year in the house as they are dreaming dreams, planting gardens, mending broken things, inviting neighbors, and welcoming a new baby.

The memoir is full of truth, beauty, and goodness wrapped up in every day living. Christie meditates on faith and God’s promises, eternity and tomorrow, dirt and tomatoes. Other books I’ve read about homes and gardens were enjoyable, but I think that Roots and Sky hit something deep inside of me because of Christie’s constant reminder of the Lord and His work in her life and in ours. Her metaphors are lovely and get at truths that are often hard to encapsulate.

Here are just a few of the dozens of quotes I underlined:

Our lives are stories built of small moments. Ordinary experiences. It is too easy to forget that our days are adding up to something astonishing. We do not often stop to notice the signs and wonders. The writing on the wall. But some days we do.

Homecoming is a single word, and we use it to describe a single event. But true homecoming requires more time. It seems to be a process rather than a moment. Perhaps we come home the way the earth comes home to the sun. It could be that homecoming is always a return and our understanding of home deepens with each encounter.

I see how each season lies tucked up inside another. How fall’s warm yellow is hidden within summer’s cool green. How even the scented explosion of spring lies sleeping within winter branches that seem brittle with death.

What if gratitude is more about seeing the face of God? Of locking our eyes on his and remembering where our help comes from? Perhaps gratitude is not only a discipline but also a gift, one we are given in special measure just before we pass through the door to suffering.

It reminded me of three books I love all wrapped up in one: The Magic Apple Tree by Susan Hill, The Crosswick Journals by Madeleine L’Engle, and The Country Diary of an English Lady. Christie Purifoy has a new book coming out next month. I can hardly wait to read it.

What books have you read that touch your soul and fill your heart with singing?

Cultivating Friendships

~ Joy O'Toole ~ Leave a comment

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Friendships are like gardens. When we first plant our flowers or vegetables, we spend time preparing the soil, digging, and watering. But then, summer comes, we are busy with other things, and it’s all too easy to neglect our flowers until they droop and, sometimes, die.

Just as we need to continue to weed and water and fertilize our gardens, it is also necessary to spend time and energy on our friendships lest they fade away from neglect.

In these days of “crazy busy”, it can be hard to find time for friendships. By the time we finish work, paid or volunteer, take care of our homes and families, and fulfill our responsibilities, it is difficult to get out of the house one more time to see a friend. However, while all of those things are important, so are our friendships.

It was easier when my children were young and I was home with them. We had play dates, and the mothers chatted. We hauled the kids to the YMCA for pool time or ping pong or racquetball games, and the mothers exercised together. There were multiple activities at which the parents grew to know one another for a season or for several years, depending on the activity.

Now that my children are grown and gone and I’m working outside the home, finding time for friends is much more difficult. Making new friends is even harder.

One of my personal goals for 2018 was to make time for friendships, old and new. I am doing this in a variety of ways: walking about once a week with my closest friend, having coffee or lunch with at least one friend a month, and occasionally watching someone’s baby with a mutual friend so we can both get baby cuddle time and have time to talk, too.

Another way I found time to cultivate relationships was to throw a spring tea this past March. A dear friend and I worked together on it, which gave us time together, and then on a Saturday, we had a small group of women come share tea and delicious food with us for the afternoon. We scattered groups of chairs in several rooms so everyone had an opportunity to sit down with someone they hadn’t seen for a while. My friend and I had the joy of talking with our dear friends and giving them an afternoon of beauty, tea, and conversation.

Not only did I have the opportunity to cultivate my friendships, I helped others to cultivate theirs as well and created memories to add to our histories together. It was well worth the time and energy.

All of us can find a couple of hours a month to spend with a friend. Do things together that you have to do anyway like exercise or grocery shop. Grab a quick cup of coffee on your way home from work one night a month. Join a book club or Bible study that meets regularly so you see the same faces repeatedly and have the time to get to know them. Spend the time with a friend in real life that you would have spent on social media.

As Laura Vanderkam says in her book 168 Hours, there are 168 hours in a week and not all of them are spent sleeping and working. Dedicate a certain amount of time to your friends and you will find that the time and energy spent is multiplied in pleasure.

How do you make time for friendships? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to have more ideas to reach my goal for 2018 and add to my treasury of friends.

 

The Farmer’s Market

~ Joy O'Toole ~ Leave a comment


Having a rare Saturday off work today, I decided to go over to our local Farmer’s Market.  I wanted some vegetables for dinner and some local honey for allergy prevention.

What a great place!  There were rows of vegetables and fruits, flowers and plants, nut butters, honey, and so much more.  I had a strict budget which I kept, with much difficulty, until I came upon a plant stall.  At this point, I lost my heart to a gorgeous coneflower.  The farmer and I had a great chat about my growing adventures this year (which I must share with you all one of these days), and he gave me some good advice for encouraging the white coneflower plant I already have, which has struggled this summer.

Then I saw some cockscomb.  I had fallen in love with this flower while at Monticello last week and was thrilled to buy some for my dining room table.  After I bought it, the farmer showed me where the seeds were located (100’s of them) and told me to save them and plant them in my garden next summer.  How fun is that?

It was a lovely, cool morning, and I came home laden with vegetables, fruit, and flowers.  What a great way to spend a Saturday morning!