Welcome to A Writer’s Garden where writers who are gardeners or just love gardens will be sharing their garden and flower stories, as well as a bit about their writing. Today’s writer/gardener guest is Virginia Davidson, who be sharing about gardening with her mom and the love of gardening she passed on to her daughter.
Welcome, Virginia!
The rusty mailbox door creaks open as I reach my 5-year-old grubby hand in to grab the salt shaker. I run quickly to my mom who is bent over pulling weeds, and study her as she wipes a tomato on her pants before tasting. I follow suit by polishing my tomato on my favorite baseball shirt, take a bite, and shake some salt before diving back in for another. Memories of gardening with my mom are full of tattered strings, old beat-up jeans, dirty faces, giggles, and wheelbarrows full of produce.
I wish I could say I kept up gardening through the years. Somehow I stopped going out to join her. As a teenager, I would rather do dishes and watch her care for the plants than sit in the dirt weeding in the hot sun. I saw it as a miserable chore rather than special moments together reaping food and beauty through the season.
Thankfully she didn’t stop. My mother never gave up on passing the love of cultivating beauty every summer. Five years ago she began stopping by my home, pulling out weeds and turning forgotten sections of my yard to places of rest and loveliness/blooms.
I watched from the kitchen window with a kid on my hip and dinner on the stove until one day I joined her. She handed me a spade and began reintroducing me to the charm of gardening.
Today I tread lightly through the garden not only remembering the plant names, but the flowers that will come, and the moments they were planted, side by side with my mom.
Two creaky turquoise chairs sit in my perennial garden near the road where my mom and I rest our bodies.
The kids play dolls, ride bikes, and dribble the basketball next to us as we pull unwelcome visitors, and prune the returning blooms. Now it’s my turn to grow special memories with my children. And maybe this summer I’ll plant some tomatoes, find a rusty mailbox and salt shaker, and patiently pass on the beauty of planting to them.
About the Writer/Gardener:
Virginia Davidson is an author, speaker, and Wholly Loved Ministries’ team member who loves watching the green sprout forth in the spring through the dark and desolate ground. She enjoys the confident expectation of the blooms to come, and time spent with my family in the garden. Find her on Instagram at @ginnydavidsonspeaks – IG and online at http://virginiadavidson.com/.
Anchored and Secure: Thanks to Christ’s death and resurrection, we don’t have to stress, strive, or perform. We simply need to rest in what Christ has already done. That is when we begin to come; to live as He intended. That’s when we discover true and lasting freedom. This sixty-day devotional helps women reflect on God’s grace and the freedom of living deeply anchored in Him.
You can find Anchored and Secure: 60 Days of Resting in Grace devotional at Amazon
Catherine Castle 