Some days I walk out to the garden thinking I’m about to wage war. Not against people. Not against life. Against weeds. Tiny green freeloaders with roots stronger than my emotional stability before caffeine. The sun comes up over the rows, the clouds split open like Heaven itself is peeking through the pine trees, and there I stand in red-covered-oil crocs holding a knee pad, and a bucket like I’m preparing for spiritual battle. Honestly? Maybe I am.

Gardening will preach to you if you let it. You can plant good seeds. Water faithfully. Pray over things. Tend to them daily. Somehow the weeds still show up uninvited like distant relatives during supper. Every single time I start pulling them, I catch myself thinking: “Do the plants really appreciate this?”

Like are the tomatoes over there whispering: “Thank you, Nikki. We were literally fighting for our lives.”

Meanwhile the weeds are probably screaming: “TYRANT!”

Then I start wondering about the ants. Because imagine being an ant. You wake up one Tuesday morning, stretch your 6 little legs, head outside your sand mansion with a crumb in your mouth, and suddenly an enormous woman with a ponytail and unresolved thoughts starts ripping the Earth apart above your home. To them I probably look like an Old Testament event. Tiny ant prophet: “The ground trembles! Repent!” There I am just trying to remove crabgrass while sweating through a tank top from 2009.

But even while I’m joking with myself, it hits me sometimes that maybe God looks at us the same way when he starts clearing things out of our lives. We panic. We complain. We don’t understand why things are being uprooted. Meanwhile He’s looking at the bigger picture because He can see what’s choking the garden.

Gardening has turned me into the type of person who stops entire conversations to look at a bug the size of a sprinkle. I’ll be halfway through pulling weeds and suddenly crouch down like a wildlife documentary narrator. “Look at him. He pays taxes here.” There’s this whole tiny world moving around us constantly. Ants hauling food bigger than themselves. Beetles climbing leaves like mountain climbers. Caterpillars munching away without a single care in the world.

Creation stays busy. Somehow God notices every bit of it. Maybe He notices us too when we’re bent over in a garden trying to hold ourselves together 1 zucchini at a time.

The caterpillars really humble me though. They just eat. Constantly. No guilt. No overthinking. No existential crisis. Just: “Leaf. Mine.” Honestly? Respect.

The tomatoes are my favorite reminder that growth takes its sweet time. You can stare at a green tomato every day wiling it to turn red and it will absolutely ignore your impatience. Life does that too.

Some prayers ripen slow. Some healing ripens slow. Some people ripen slow. Including me. Eventually one morning you walk outside and realize something changed while you weren’t looking.

Then comes the zucchini season where suddenly you have 17th squash and no idea how it happened. One day: “Nothing’s growing.” 3 days later: “Dear God, please make it stop!” That garden will humble a person fast.

Not everything comes out perfect either. Some squash grow crooked like they’ve lived hard lives. Some strawberries stay tiny. Some peppers look confused. They still grew. Honestly, I think people like that too. God still calls things good even when they come out bent, bruised, anxious, late blooming, or carrying scars. This part comforts me more than most sermons.

This strawberry feels holy somehow. Tiny little red jewels sitting in sandy Deep East Texas dirt like God is saying: “See? Beautiful things still grow here.” Even after storms. Even after droughts. Even after being stepped on a few times.

Finally, there is always a spider somewhere watching me weed like I’m the neighborhood entertainment. Probably judging my technique. Even the spider has a purpose. That’s the thing gardening keeps teaching me over and over: Nothing out there exists accidentally. Not the weeds. Not the ants. Not the harvest. Not the waiting. Not even me.

Tomorrow I will walk back outside with dirt on my hands and questions in my head, talking to tomatoes like they are co-workers and apologizing to ant colonies while pulling weeds.

Somewhere between the rows and the silence, God will still be there.