I feel like a kid at Christmas right now as I wait for Chris to get home from his conference this afternoon.   The second he walks in the door we are loading the kids in the car and heading to buy our summer vegetable plants and flowers.   After have such success with our vegetable garden last year, we added three new raised flower beds for veggies and flowers this year.  Our beds are completed, prepped, and ready.  All week the dirt filled boxes have been beckoning me, “Come, plant in me!  Come, plant in me!”

I am a daughter of two avid gardeners.  I am a granddaughter of avid gardeners.  As a kid, I swore I would never be interested in gardening because I disliked HATED pulling weeds (it was often our punishment as a kid).  Once Chris and I bought our first house seven years ago, I sheepishly began to admit that I actually loved gardening.  I did not want to admit it too loud at first because I knew my parents would laugh at the fact that I enjoyed the very thing I disliked helping with as a kid.  While I remember mom and dad both laughing at my “new” found interest, they did not hesitate to share every bit of their gardening wisdom with me.  Slowly, but surely I learned how to transform the naked, empty flower beds into something beautiful.  

So, now, after seven years of experience and seven years of absorbing lessons from my parents, grandparents, and any other gardener I can ask, my fingers are itching to transform those empty boxes  into beds full of beautiful God given plants bursting with flowers and vegetables. 

My seven years of experience with gardening holds nothing to God’s experience in transforming us.  God’s work does not start with an empty box.  God’s work began on us a long time ago and has continued throughout our lives as God continuously preps our soil, plant new seeds, waters those seeds, harvests our fruit from our matured plants, and pulls and prunes those plants that are no longer needed.  God is constantly creating us and transforming us. 

While my empty beds are begging to be transformed from scratch, God does not start from scratch.  God uses all that we are and all we have been through to transform us into something even better! 

Where can I unequivocally see God’s work at transforming me in my life?
What moments in my life may God’s hand be there even though I do not recognize it at first?
Am I aware that God has been at work in my life all along? 

Becky Eldredge

Becky is an Ignatian-trained spiritual director, retreat facilitator, and writer. She is the author of the Busy Lives and Restless Souls (March 2017, Loyola Press) and The Inner Chapel (April 2020, Loyola Press). She helps others create space to connect faith and everyday life through facilitating retreats and days of reflection, through writing, and through spiritual direction. With nearly twenty years of ministry experience within the Catholic Church, Becky seeks to help others discover God at work in the every day moments of people’s lives by utilizing St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises and the many gifts that our Catholic faith and Ignatian Spirituality provide.