Rhubarb Promise

This spring I splurged on something I’ve wanted for a while: four little rhubarb starts.

I’d planted some at our old house, and they were just getting mature enough to begin to harvest around the time we moved. That seems to be my pattern with gardening: years of investment establishing plants, then moving before reaping the harvest of all that work. There’s another devotional thought for another time tucked in there somewhere…

But these new rhubarb plants were a fresh start, a chance to build for the future in this place. They were dormant when I brought them home, little more than brown roots that didn’t resemble anything living. Trusting the process, I planted them along the half-shaded side of what we affectionately call our “duck run,” the fenced area on our property where we hope to someday raise ducks.

About a week after I’d planted them, I came out to find three of the root-like starts laying exposed on top of the dirt. I thought it was a little strange, but I assumed an animal of some kind had come along and pulled on the barely-there green sprouts that had started to grow on them. I replanted them, patting the dirt around them to hopefully make them harder to uproot, and gave them a good soaking.

A week or so later, the same thing happened. And then again. And again.

In all, I replanted the rhubarb starts at least four times. I was beginning to wonder if they’d ever survive their first year on our farm!

The weeks went by. We had a rainy spring and, other than weeding, the gardens didn’t require too much of my attention. To be honest, I forgot about the rhubarb for a while, tucked a little away from the rest of the plants. Then one day I came around the corner of the duck run and got a wonderful surprise: Three of the plants had taken, and they were enormous! They’d leafed out, spreading and growing healthy reddish stalks with beautiful curly green leaves. They’d done even better than I expected them to!

But there were only three.

I scanned the garden, wondering what might have happened to the fourth plant. It wasn’t promising that I’d find anything, especially after so much time had passed. But at the very edge of the bed, I found a shriveled little rhubarb root. It looked even worse than when I’d first brought it home, and I was sure it must be completely dead. I kicked myself for not continuing to check the plants to make sure the mystery thief hadn’t uprooted them. But there was still a tiny tip of green.

And if there was a little green, there was life.

I carried it back over to its place and gently tucked it into the soil, watering it and whispering a little prayer that maybe it, too, would take.

Another few weeks went by. One sunny afternoon, my oldest and I worked together to weed the gardens. He got to the rhubarb patch, and exclaimed over how well they were doing. “But what about that one?” he asked, pointing to the poor fourth plant. It had begun to grow, but it was miniscule compared with the other healthy plants.

I explained that that one had had a rough start, and I hadn’t been sure it would make it at all. “But there was a little green, so I was hoping it could still live. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be the biggest and healthiest of all of them.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt God whisper, “That rhubarb is for you. It’s a picture for you to hold onto.”

And with those words, what felt like a promise: that rhubarb would be the biggest and healthiest, and when I saw it, I would rejoice, knowing that God had done it–and that it represented far more than rhubarb.

I’d been walking through some really painful, difficult circumstances with several friends and family members. Hard seasons, broken relationships, external challenges. Many of them, if I’m honest, felt hopeless, and I’d been carrying the weight of them and pouring my heart out in prayer. A few days before, as I’d confessed to God how impossible it seemed that anything could change for the better, he’d given me an image of a branch that was nearly dying, but still had some green at its center. I’d shared it with my husband, and we’d been clinging to that “little bit of green,” asking that God could bring the whole “tree” back to life in those hard circumstances.

So when I spoke those words to my son, “but there was a little green,” it echoed through my heart and mind. I’d already been praying that God would nurse the green back to life, and here He’d given me a tangible, visible picture–and a promise. He could save a dying rhubarb plant, and He could save the desperate situations my loved ones faced.

In this life we come up against impossible odds sometimes. We set out with all the intentions and hopes of new rhubarb plants. Sometimes we’re struggling to survive before we ever get in the ground. Sometimes our growth feels thwarted, pulled up again and again before we’re able to establish our roots. Sometimes we lag behind others, feeling weak or like we’ll never amount to as much as the people around us.

But our God is the God of barely-green branches. Of dry bones. Of impossible odds. He’s the God of little forgotten rhubarb plants and also of broken hearts. He’s the God who heals the blind, brings the dead up from the grave, and promises us life–abundant life. And He does all of it, even when hope feels too far gone.

You may have a rhubarb start in your life, a painful place that just feels impossible to heal or overcome. A relationship, an illness, a dream. Maybe you’ve tried again and again to get it to grow, only to find your hopes uprooted.

Whatever it is, don’t stop yet. There’s still green in the branch as long as you have breath in your lungs. Plant it again. And again and again and again. Sow seeds of trust that God is still God. He’s the Master Gardener, the grower of all that thrives. He will grow this, too, if you trust it to Him.

I’ll be watching that little rhubarb plant. Next year, when it’s larger and healthier than all the others, I’ll probably stand next to it with tears in my eyes. Because if God could do it for that plant, He can do it for the broken places in my loved ones’ lives.

And He absolutely will.