95 | Grow Around It: Daily Faithfulness, Holy Resilience, and Trusting God With What Isn't Yours to Carry
This week summer arrived at my Houston garden the way I least expected —
with rain. Days of soft, soaking, generous rain. And I have walked out
into that wet garden every single morning and come back inside with my
hands full.
But abundance, when you are the woman responsible for it, does not always
feel like a gift. It can feel like pressure. So in this episode we sit
with two things the garden has been teaching me — two things that belong
hand in hand.
The first is that God works in the daily. Not in the worry, not in the
frantic rehearsing of a tomorrow that has not arrived — but in daily
provision, daily mercy, the small holy work of tending your one small
part. We let a pot of Romanian wax bean soup, made from the last small
handful of beans, teach us about manna and daily bread.
The second is what to do when the daily itself is hard. I went out to
pick a tromboncino squash and found it had grown itself completely around
the support rod of my thirty-two-foot raised bed — and it was still, still
bearing fruit. We sit in Lamentations 3, Matthew 6, and John 15, and we
ask the bravest question of the season: what if the limit you keep
resenting is the very thing holding you up?
Three formation practices this week: Gather Today's Manna, Tend Your
Square Foot, and Find Your Rod and Curl.
You are allowed to set down what was never yours to carry. And you are
still going to bear fruit.
IN THIS EPISODE:
- How summer arrived with rain, and a garden full enough to fill my hands
every morning
- The last handful of flat wax beans — and the Romanian green bean soup,
finished with garlic and sour cream, that my mother used to make
- Why the smallest, most ordinary blessings are the main course, not the
leftovers of the spiritual life
- The tromboncino squash that grew around the support rod — and what it
would not stop teaching me
- Manna, daily bread, and why God built daily-ness into the way He feeds
His people
- "You do not need to carry what is not yours"
- The three things you can do when you meet an obstacle you cannot move:
rage at it, break against it, or curl
- Why that rod is load-bearing — and what that means for your own limits
THREE FORMATION PRACTICES FOR THE WEEK:
- Gather Today's Manna — each morning, name only what is yours to tend today, and hand the rest back to God
- Tend Your Square Foot — one small, finishable act of faithfulness, done with your whole attention
- Find Your Rod, and Curl — name one real constraint, and ask how to grow around it and still bear fruit
THIS WEEK'S GENTLE QUESTION:
What if the limit you keep resenting is actually holding you up?
SCRIPTURES REFERENCED:
- Lamentations 3:22-23 (his mercies are new every morning)
- Exodus 16 (manna in the wilderness)
- Matthew 6:11, 25-34 (daily bread; do not be anxious about tomorrow)
- Psalm 55:22 / 1 Peter 5:7 (cast your burden on the Lord)
- John 15:1-5 (I am the vine; you are the branches)
RESOURCES MENTIONED:
- Free Rooted in Grace eBook — rootedingrace.me (or comment GROW on Instagram)
- Rooted Reset (5-day guided return) — link in show notes
- Rooted in Grace print book — Amazon
- 30-Day Rooted in Grace Devotional — Amazon
CONNECT WITH SANDA:
- Instagram: @southernsoils
- Pinterest: @southernsoilsunshine
- Website: southernsoilsunshine.com
- Podcast home: rootedingrace.podbean.com