Of Raspberries and Resets

a devotional for spring

Photo by Nick Odnari on Unsplash

we look high and low for spring
but she slips slow into frame, 
delicate enough
to melt away;

one minute she has summer on her breath
the next, winter's mantle
drapes across her shoulders

and we sigh:
is it now? is it now?

the newborn trees applaud
in wind strong enough
to take our words away,

and spring is hidden, holy 

in the space left behind
by an earthworm's 
silent journey. 

I’ll be the first to admit: I don’t like to feel like I’m going backwards. To backtrack. To retrace my steps. To start over.

I’m the person who constructs my grocery lists so that I can make one continuous circuit around the store without any interruptions or backtracking. I am the same way about driving, doing chores, and work-based task-lists. Planned routes, always. Momentum, please.

Resetting to zero, or even just a few paces back from where I was, feels like hell.

So it was with great chagrin this weekend that I had to admit that the raspberry canes I had nursed through the winter and transplated out into the garden needed to be dug back up and brought back into the greenhouse.

It’s a little thing. But it’s a setback.

Coming out of winter, the raspberry plant was healthy and happy in the greenhouse, already budding with early blooms, leaves a happy green. When I transplanted it into the garden proper, I had visions of flourishing growth. And as a raspberry addict, I found myself daydreaming about more than a few jars of raspberry jam, or homemade raspberry pie, or tarts, or ice cream, or…

But then, within a day or so of planting it outside, the deer found it. They nibbled off the fresh green growth and the flower buds, as they are wont to do. Then, as a one-two-punch, the weather decided to be a bit uncooperative, with nights still frigid and days full of rain and wind.

What was left behind of the raspberry canes was still alive, but clearly shocked and a bit stunted. It certainly wasn’t growing any taller, or fuller, or happier.

So, with a sigh, I accepted the inevitable: it was time to dig ‘er up, put ‘er in a pot, and bring ‘er back into the greenhouse to wait out the slow start to true spring before any more irreversible damage could be done.

As with a lot of the topics in my devotionals, it’s not a big deal. It really isn’t. It’s a very small thing, in the grand scheme. But my emotions around it were complicated.

Part of me wanted to leave the raspberry plant where it was. To let it white-knuckle its way through. To shrug and say, “Whatever happens, it’s staying put.” But ultimately, that was just my pride as a gardener talking. I didn’t want to admit that I timed it wrong, and the plant would have paid the price.

Then I thought: how many times do I do the same thing to myself? To my psyche, my body, my soul? Force it to stay put in a situation or mindset that isn’t healthy, convinced that everything will work out fine and ignoring the way the deer are hungrily eyeing my leaves? (Okay, the metaphor might be getting a little thin, there…)

My point is, sometimes you have to let our loving God dig you up and set you back a little bit. Sometimes you may have to make the choice yourself. To stop pushing, to stop white-knuckling, to give yourself a chance to reset, to take stock. Pushing forward isn’t always the highest good. Sometimes rest and realigning is, letting your roots find new paths through the soil.

Will that make me more likely to retrace my steps in the grocery store? Probably not. But it will give me more grace for the parts of myself that are a little stunted and shocked, like that raspberry plant.

Here’s hoping that a week or two in a warm, sheltered place will do us all some good.

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