'Tis the Spring of newly planted marriages at the Schlabach house. As I ponder freshly formed unions, I think marriage is most like a garden. In the nursery, my mother painted both my baby thumbs green. She sealed the deal with long childhood summer hours duty bound to tend the family plot. I gloved my hands in early adulthood with preposterous statements about never wasting time growing plants. If you visit my house, it is quite apparent that my thumbs now glow green, even in the dark. I have accepted the mantle passed from my grandmother, Lizzie to my mother, who passed it to her offspring. "Hello, my name is Cindy and I am a gardener. I am powerless to resist the urge to grow things." Come inside the mind of a plotter.
Grandma Lizzie, rake in hand.
My mother, picking a batch of sweet corn in the rain.
You've found the perfect place for your paradise planting plot. You are wasting your time unless you start with the soil. Rocks must be removed, fertilizer added, and the dirt needs to be tilled to a fine consistency. So a marriage starts with trust, honesty, selflessness, and the nurturing of time. Clods must be worked over until they crumble, providing a safe haven for hearts to take root, then open, and blossom.
As a child leaning over a furrowed row, dropping tiny corn kernels, I remember thinking with amazement, how that diminutive seed would be a six foot stalk of corn by summer's end. And the bare, open field, in three short months, would morph into a jungle of vines and stalks and produce. Little things really matter in a marriage. The touch of bitterness, given enough time, will become a vine with unsavory fruit. The kind gesture when your spouse in hurting, grows into a tree with shade to shelter you both. As you are planting your marriage, pay attention to the tiny seeds. Given that we are all creatures of habit, you are laying down the tracks now for your life together.
Sharon, Lowell and I preparing to plant the rows in our family garden, many years ago.
In my childhood garden, we watched impatiently for the seeds to sprout and push tentative heads up through the soil. Upon our mother's cue, we would walk through the rows in a process called "thinning". Based on the kind of vegetable, you only wanted one stalk every so many inches. As the plants grew, if they were too close together, there would not be enough water, space, and nutrients, resulting in stunted growth and subpar produce. "Thinning" meant someone would pull out the extra, healthy shoots, so there was only one plant every 4-6 inches. Seems strange to uproot growing vegetation; sometimes to achieve the best, you must sacrifice the good. In marriage, I think this process most often means guarding your time together. Some good things need to be uprooted so that your bond will have room and time to grow. I have found this "thinning" changes through the different seasons of life, but always needs to be addressed. Taking care of each other means investing time.
Occasionally during the summer, my family of origin would all pile into a car, and go visit out-of-state relatives for a week or two. Playing with cousins, picking blackberries with our Georgia Grandma, or fishing with Grandpa and helping him milk the cows were welcome diversions. Alas, when we returned home, the weeds would have taken root. Sometimes you could hardly tell the plants from the weeds, since they were of similar size. We kids would be commissioned to battle, spending many hot hours pulling those giant weeds, helping to reestablish order to the garden. Funny how easy small weeds pulled out of the ground with a gentle tug. Vacation weeds had made themselves at home, and often required bracing your feet and pulling with both of your childish hands, and even then, sometimes the weed would break off, leaving the root intact. The marriage analogy could not be more obvious: take care of problems while they are small. Once they have grown and taken root, the issues will be much more challenging. Don't make assumptions or take each other for granted. Dialogue about everything! Nothing is too unimportant or insignificant to bring to the table. If it bothers you now, trust me, it will bother you much more later.
Most bountiful gardens need a fence or a hedge encircling to keep critters out who would nibble at the tender, leafy lettuces, or rip ears of corn from the mature stalks. A strong marriage, too, needs boundaries, to protect the sanctity within. Talk about your fences and always be wary of the deer with the long neck who can reach over and pull the leaves from the young trees.
Whether growing plants or gardening a marriage, some things are always beyond our control. Sunshine and rain are gifts from God, without which, that first, sweet tomato will not form. It is really the balance of those two elements that are needed for a horticultural paradise. A month of rain will rot the roots and a month of hot sun without rain, will fry the plants. Our best efforts cannot produce either; sun and rain come from God. Each sunrise in your young, tender marriage, lift your hearts heavenward and ask for Sonlight and showers of blessings. Trust God - He knows and loves intimately and infinitely. Sometimes the rain is a waterfall of tears, to soften the soil. The same sun that hardens clay, can also melt wax.
Tend your garden well. Cherish it, so you can harvest a lifetime of marital love, joy and contentment.
Tiffany and Chris
Jeremy and Lauren