The growing season of the mountain town where I live is painfully short—and perilous if you happen to be a plant. 

The overpopulation of deer means little foliage remains beneath five feet. The soil is rocky, the winters long. (As in, it could snow nine months of the year.) So when I do plant, I have to be able to whisk an unsuspecting geranium inside for a sudden frost in May. 

Some neighbors of mine resort to fake plants. They’re a strange burst of emerald green in the winters; remember the tree in Psalm 1 that “yields its fruit in season”? Everyone in the northern hemisphere should be highly suspect of cherries in December. In summer, those silk and plastic wonders look lush from forty feet. But when you get up close, they pale in comparison to the columbines, larkspurs, and poppies that do grow here. (…In a deer-proof fence.)  

When I lived in Uganda, I literally found basil or tomato plants sprouting out of the sidewalk. The climate for plants was ideal. But for my soul? That was a different story. 

You, too, may live in a place where the spiritual terrain is rough and rife with enemies to thriving. Personally, I’ve been wooed to slap on some fake fruit in my own winters of the soul, or when the enemy has suddenly sheared off every previously lustrous bloom inside me. It’s embarrassing to be a hydrangea that looks more like a twig. 

But even then? I’m astonished at the tenacity of plants to survive; to concentrate what’s left in their soil toward first foliage—photosynthesis takes priority, people—and later, toward dense beauty. 

This requires watching the weather for unsuspecting frost, watering regularly, and feeding my plants. Because it’s unrealistic to expect healthy plants from overused, neglected, frozen soil.  

I’d guess you’re getting my analogy. God reminds me to guard my heart above all else: More than my ministry, those I minister to, my kids, my marriage, my finances. If someone were to perform a soil test on my heart, what kind of fruit would they expect later? Am I sometimes expecting unrealistic fruit from my environment, or when my soul’s been recently transplanted? What’s my game plan considering the frost or ravenous beasts that may descend on my soul?