I let the garden go to weeds this year. I didn’t mean to, honest! But grief begged me for flowers, then turned its back on the more responsible, fruitful spaces. I couldn’t seem to muster the motivation to brave the work and heat just for tomatoes and cucumbers, when the front gardens promised such varied, colorful and floral delights. So, I let the back vegetable gardens go. Grasses and native plants stood waist-high within the grid of the garden, hints of red tomatoes deep within speckling the verdant, woven walls of weeds. A pumpkin plant I had planned to go out into what should have been a clearing instead found its way to the cattle panel arch trellis where the Chinese noodle beans I should have planted should have been growing, and rather than grow along the ground, the pumpkin was now growing up the naked trellis, clinging tightly above the weedy wasteland that lay beneath for dear life. Thriving thistle thickets lay amongst the sages and tarragon, daring me with devilish desire to try my hand at harvest.
That garden? Oh, my. She’s simply feral. Wild. Unfruitful. Ominous and intimidating in her reckless abandon.
And yet, perhaps not entirely so. As I donned my farmer’s sleeves and a beat-up pair of gardening gloves, I could see the squash plants, thin and suppressed, but not yet dead. Spindly watermelon plants with tiny, undernourished fruits were still trying to hang on to life. And the noodle beans I was supposed to have planted two months ago decided amongst themselves to go ahead and sprout anyway, somehow sensing the leadership of their ingenious brother, the pumpkin, in search of their favorite trellis.
She was wild, but she was still there, somewhere beneath the matted tangles of weeds.
So I started to pull. With less-than judicious handfuls, I ripped, tore, tugged and tossed, a fervor in my spirit, to take it back. It was far past time. I knew why the garden had grown so wild; it missed its gardener. And I missed it too. I worked through the heat till my clothes stuck moist against my perspiry frame, uncovering half-dead tomato plants, struggling cucumbers, by-gone melons.
And the Holy Spirit stopped me in my tracks for a moment.
”Don’t let Satan get a foothold.”
Huh?
”Don’t let Satan get a foothold.”
Yank. Rip. Tear. Toss.
”Don’t let Satan get a foothold.”
It resounded in my spirit like the steady drone of the trees when the breeze causes them to dance. But why this message, in the midst of this mess?
Because this is what happens when you do.
When you let Satan get a foothold, when the weeds of sin and death take hold and choke out the good and fruitful growth, causing your soul to become some wild, wayward thing, it looks like this garden.
Yet, it didn’t feel like a reprimand; far too gentle was the voice. I think it was a warning.
”Don’t let Satan get a foothold.”
This year has been a thoroughly painful one. Sometimes the grief threatens me with bitterness, resentment, despair and fear. I’ve tried to make room for them – to acknowledge their presence in the garden of my soul – and let the Master Gardener pull them before they take root. But what if I let Satan get a foothold? What if I fail to take every thought captive? What if I lack in guarding my heart?
That garden? Oh, my. She’s simply feral. Wild. Unfruitful. Ominous and intimidating in her reckless abandon.
Rip. Pull. Tear. Toss.
Toss… patches of plant matter and ponderings piled up together as I freed the beds of their unwelcome visitors, handful by handful. These piles will dry up, baking in the sun. Their roots will die out, their seeds wither. And as they dry in their heaps, they’ll create a dry, dusty, brown and crusty carpet with which I can use once more. These weeds that once choked out the fruitfulness of this space will soon become the mulch that will protect the good fruiting that continues. These weeds were once deathly to the garden, but will decompose and feed the soil beneath, and shield the earth beneath from the scorching sun. These weeds will bring life.
Toss… one lie after another. “I’m not good enough.” Toss. “God must have thought I wasn’t fit to be a mom again.” Toss. “How could a good God take my baby from my womb before he even took a first breath?” Toss.
“Don’t let Satan get a foothold.”
I can’t say that I understand the mind of God – especially in this season. I see babies abandoned, even murdered, by their parents, and I weep. What I wouldn’t give to hold my own baby boy today, alive and well, nourished at my breast, driving me up the wall with his wakefulness and wails as teeth grew in. I can feel the vulnerability of my heart, sore and wounded, questioning.
I’ve trusted God with the life of my children, and I’ve seen Him show up in incredible ways. The twins have beaten the odds in the best possible manner.
And I know I can trust God with the death of my children.
They never were “mine” to begin with. There is no life within me without the Giver of Life breathing into me. Into my children. It is His to give, and His to take.
I will trust him with the death of my son.
Rip. Tear. Yank. Toss.
Toss… but death isn’t the end. “…death is just the doorway into resurrection life.” (Christ Be Magnified by Cody Carnes). These wounds upon our soul as we wrestle life and death here on earth can become the greatest mulch upon the soil of the garden of our hearts. Mulch that keeps us soft, moist, nourished and fruitful. Mulch that protects the gardens of our hearts from seeds of sin and unfaithfulness.
”Don’t let Satan get a foothold.”
“Take back the garden of your heart.”
Let the weeds be pulled up. Let them be dried out. Let them become the mulch that helps you to flourish. Don’t just ignore it. Don’t let Satan get a foothold. Don’t give in to the lies; take every thought captive. Feel what you feel, but don’t get stuck there. Protect your soul, for it is precious, perhaps even more so in such a broken, vulnerable state. Guard it. Protect it. Take back the garden of your soul.
It became a war cry as I thinned overgrown marigolds and pulled up entire sapling trees. It fueled my fury as I took back the vegetable beds. My muscles were physically sore, my garden gloves sporting new holes and pulling apart at the seams. But I felt passionate for a moment, as if somehow in tacking back the vegetable beds, I could take back something hidden in my heart.
“I’M TAKING BACK THE GARDEN OF MY SOUL!!!”
These seasons of woe, of spiritual drought, of hardships and testing, they can leave us wrecked, listening to the lies, engaging in the sin, unfruitful and wild. But they can also leave us fruitful. These things meant to break us might be the shears in the hands of the Master Gardener, pruning us and providing precious covering for the soil of our hearts.
Take it back, sweet sinner. Take back the garden of your soul.
Take it back, precious doubter. Take back the garden of your soul.
Take it back, my brother, my sister.
Take back the garden of your soul.
Take it back.
Do not let Satan get a foothold.
7/22/26
G&P,
-SF
Cotton Ribbons 