Our mantelpieces are now bare of the evergreen garlands, red velvet bows, and golden lights that graced them: the Christmas tree’s location in the living room has been restored to rights. All’s as it should be: The liturgical season of Ordinary Time has come, following close on the heels of the New Year.
Life now can feel a bit like the way the winter sky looks. Although I have spent my whole life in the toasty southern United States, warmth and sunshine still withdraw where I live during January. For afternoons at a time, the grey blankness of the sky mirrors how I feel about the year ahead: It looks like a blank canvas, perhaps more gray than white. I must patiently wait for the Lord to paint rays of light, or better yet, something in color, into the future of the year. Looking out the window at the sky causes me to reflect on the past year and wonder what the unstirred potential of this year holds.
A glance from the sky to the soil in January offers much the same sight: Garden beds are empty and quite frozen over in many places. Although I have never seen firsthand the seasonal shift from blustery to blossoming that marks the rhythm of life for many, I imagine what the world must look like in the bleak monochrome of gray sky meeting a carpet of snow.
A new year feels like a waiting garden: What might it hold this year? What hopes and dreams can I plant?
At the top of the year, it is time to dream of flowers.
Flowers Grow in the Valley
One January night last year, I experienced a spiritual low point. Through it all, the tune of a song kept playing in my mind, but I didn’t know its name or even if the song was religious. So strongly did the music’s presence persist that I finally recalled enough of it to find it: it’s called “Flowers” by Samantha Ebert (you may know it as a collab with Catholic worship singer Seph Schlueter). This song is a healing anthem of trust that strikes a deep chord in the believer’s heart:
So I brought it up in a desperate prayer:
Lord, why are You keeping me here?
Then He said to me, 'Child, I'm planting seeds
I'm a good God and I have a good plan,
So trust that I'm holding a watering can
And someday you'll see that flowers grow in the valley.'"
The lyrics above from the refrain of Ebert’s song remind us that we grow in darkness, just like seeds under the soil. And sometimes we only see blossoms in the valley in hindsight.
I invite you to pray with this song today, especially if you are reading this in the early, wintry days of Ordinary Time, at the start of the year. The peaceful melody resonates with the still and sullen days of silent growth. These times call us to remember that our hearts heal and renew when we trust that “a good God with a real good plan” tends our world with “a watering can.”
Store-bought Flowers, Shattered Dreams
When I found Ebert’s “Flowers” for the first time, I wondered why the song’s title seemed familiar. Soon, I realized that a Miley Cyrus hit shares the same name. And yet these songs could not be more different. One plays with pop music in shopping malls, while the other has trended on Christian radio and social media. The distinct beat of Cyrus’ song feels like an attempt to out-bop the pain of grief, while gentle piano in Ebert’s composition soothes the soul. Despite these contrasts, ironically, both songs share an underlying theme: shattered dreams. Cyrus had a marriage but “watched it burn.” Ebert shares that she “can’t bear the weight” of undiagnosed illness and starts “losing faith.”
These songs unfold very differently because they designate two very different approaches to emotions: self-help versus surrender. Cyrus places walls around her heart in a self-protective narcissism: she insists she can be her own best solution with store-bought flowers. Meanwhile, Ebert does not dismiss the ache but accepts healing’s rhythm with patience.
Grief and shattered dreams can certainly lead to cynicism. It’s hard to be grateful for suffering, to say, “Thank You, Jesus, for keeping me there,” as Ebert does. We see this in Cyrus’ song: She pushes the hurt away and turns in on herself with a coping mentality of self-sufficiency. Meanwhile, Ebert’s composition gives the sufferer permission to acknowledge the pain and look outward toward the One Who can really fix it.
Where Cyrus thinks she knows just what she needs to fix heartbreak (she can buy herself flowers, take herself dancing, affirm herself, and show up in all the ways her partner could not), Ebert trusts God’s care for her, saying, “You know just what I need.” She awaits flowers: not ones that are bought, but a bouquet grown by a loving Hand. Her song reminds us Who is with us for the long haul––God––and no one can love us better than He can.
Whatever darkness may follow us into the New Year, the contrast between these songs teaches what our perspective should be. Selfishness withers, and store-bought flowers do not last, but seeds of faith and hope plant a living garden.
Make Space for the Sower
Maybe this winter and these weeks of Ordinary Time can become our opportunity to recognize where we and the Lord must work together to plant seeds, co-creating a garden. Do we make room in the space of our hearts and in our everyday actions for this sowing? Many times, our small sincere actions become seeds in the hearts of others: a post on Instagram, some kind advice spoken to a friend. We must also do things that plant seeds sown in our own hearts: rising at dawn to prioritize prayer, sparing time for a passage of spiritual reading, or taking a walk with no podcast on, just the sound of God’s creation.
Making space for the Sower means that we need not worry about outcomes here. To hearken back to Samantha Ebert’s lyrics, He knows just what we need: He counts and plants the seeds. Sometimes we pick up the gardening tools ourselves to take growth into our own hands, but when we trust that He holds a watering can, the “desperate prayer” becomes the relief of a grateful one.
A garden in the valley takes time to grow. We can dream of the flowers, but in the meanwhile, let’s also make room for the One Who plants the seeds.
Leila Joy Castillo calls Florida home but left her heart in hill country long ago. An alumna of Ave Maria University, she freelances in Catholic communications and is a published writer, primarily on Blessed is She and Ascension. When not dabbling in the multitudinous Google docs of her articles, Leila delights in music, personalist philosophy, quality time with her younger siblings, and her literary trifecta: Austen, Lewis, and Dante. You can find her on Instagram @leila_joyinthejourney or follow her personal site here.
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