Motherhood and the Garden You Can't See Yet
Guest Contributor: Lisa Harrison
My daughter and I were asked to speak at a women's event at our church where the focus was on generational bonds, how strong women grow strong women. There was a theme of gardens, growing & watering seeds of hope and wisdom.
Thinking about my daughter, and using the garden analogy, I realized that I spent years waiting to see beautiful flowers sprout. The lesson I’m continuing to learn is that what my daughter needs is a mom who is willing to keep watering without proof of any flowers.
My daughter is sixteen. She is navigating high school, and I am navigating the daily project of getting her out of bed before 6:30 in the morning. She tells me she is highly functional once she is actually awake, and she is right, but that’s far from helpful at 6:15 in the morning!
For most of her childhood I wanted proof. I wanted to see flowers blooming and if I am honest, I wanted it less for her sake and more for mine. I wanted some sign that all the effort was adding up, that I was doing this reasonably well, and that the ground was going to produce something. Nobody handed me that sign. What I am learning is that you can pour into a person for years before you see anything at all. As a mom, your part is to tend the ground. But the growing? That all belongs to God.
Paul says it plainly in 1 Corinthians 3:6-7: “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.” This verse didn’t have much meaning to me until recently. This new season of life changed my view completely. God showed me that I can’t do this on my own. Tending the ground has meant spending countless hours on my knees, giving it up to the one who sees and hears every detail. It is the Holy Spirit who is working and living in my children, and I have the privilege of watching Him grow them.
When our daughter was little, we tried to expose her to various activities and hobbies in order to find one that would stick, or spark a passion since so many of my friends' kids had already found theirs. Feeling like we didn’t want to miss the boat, we attempted a number of classes. We tried ice skating first. She liked the concept, had fun, but definitely wasn’t begging to go back. Then soccer, that she attended mostly for the snacks afterward. Then dance, when she decided she preferred to “free dance” in the kitchen without complicated instructions. Piano was next, which ended in tears and much irritation all around! It was frustrating to spend time, resources and energy on four things that fell kinda flat. Where was the flower? That stretch of time could perhaps be observed as us patiently trying new things for our daughter. However, if I’m being honest, signing her up for things was being done out of anxiety and it felt better to do something than trust God with a child who appeared to be doing nothing in particular. She was not the one who needed reassurance. I was!
A few years later, a flower grew from ground that I never prepared. In Grade 4, her class was assigned a public speaking project. She stood up in front of the whole school and something turned on. She was confident. She was funny. She held the room. I sat in the audience holding a barf bag because I thought I was going to be sick with nerves on her behalf! She went on to the regional competition, spoke against children years older than her, and won the whole competition. Walking to the car afterward, she told me it was the best day of her life.
I had nothing to do with it. I did not choose that assignment, pay for it, or see it coming.
And the four attempted hobbies I had privately filed as ‘wasted’ turned out to be the ones that taught her failure is survivable. She says so herself now. I cannot take credit for that either. I was not building resilience in her on purpose. I was just driving her to things and hoping.
Jesus tells a small parable about this in Mark 4:26-29: A farmer scatters seed, goes to bed, gets up, and the seeds sprouts and grow without him understanding how.That is the most honest description of parenting I know. Jeremiah 17:8 says something similar: He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.
Tending is mostly small and unglamorous.
If the growing is not mine, the fair question becomes what tending actually looks like on a normal Tuesday. My answer is smaller than I expected.
A few weeks ago, my daughter came home from a friend’s house, found me baking cookies, and asked for the dough. I said no. They were for a friend who was having a hard week. She was briefly devastated, and she also noticed who the cookies were for. I did not say one word to her about kindness. She learned more from the dough than she would have from a talk.
I am not holding that up as an accomplishment. Some weeks, I am short with people and she notices that too. She is watching either way, which is humbling! 1 John 3:18 says: Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. Matthew 5:16: In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
Small, ordinary, repeated things carry more than I gave them credit for.
Galatians 6:9 tells us: Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Notice in the verse it says proper time, not soon! God’s timing is perfect, and we need to trust it.
Sometimes, the tending is an apology.
About a year ago we hit a hard, tense season. She wanted independence, which is healthy and normal.I was holding on too tightly because I was frightened of her growing up. Every conversation turned into a negotiation and then an argument. She felt like I did not trust her. I felt like she was pulling away. I did not handle that year well.
She is an independent person who does not enjoy talking about her feelings. She keeps things to herself, assumes she can manage them alone, and sometimes does not know what she is feeling in the first place. I told myself I was giving her space by waiting for her to come to me. Looking back, I was also protecting myself from being told I was the problem.
One night I sat on the edge of her bed. I did not lecture her and I did not ask her to account for herself. I told her this was not working, that I was sure I was getting parts of it wrong, and that I was sorry. I told her I love her and I am proud of her. Then I asked if we could get to the bottom of it together. We both cried. Piece by piece, over weeks, we did.
She is planting into me too!
I did not expect this part. I overthink. I get stuck in my head and I want a plan for everything. My daughter is the first person to take a dare, start a conversation with a stranger, or enter an eating contest, and at a school culture day this spring she ate a duck embryo for no reason beyond availability!
She has taught me to laugh instead of worrying, to say yes more often, and to accept that looking a little ridiculous has never once harmed me.
So what helps me now?
I do not have a system, and I would not trust me with one. A few small shifts have helped.
I try to show up and listen to her, whenever I can. When one of her problems seems big, small or out of control, I bring it to prayer and I try to bring it to prayer WITH her.
I try to let a season end without calling it wasted. I have been wrong about that before.
When I apologize, I try not to attach a request to it.
I try to ask one question and then stay quiet, even when the silence is long.
When she teaches me something, I try to say so out loud where she can hear it.
Paul traced Timothy's faith back through his mother to his grandmother, three generations of women who planted without seeing the whole result. Titus 2 asks the older women among us to teach and encourage the younger ones, and it attaches no promise about when that will show. You may be the grandmother who put the first seeds in. You may be the mother doing the daily watering. You may be the friend who is the one kind thing in someone's week right now.
You are planting into someone this week, even if the ground still looks bare. Tend it gently. God will handle the growing.
