Morning Glory Miracle

Stress began to dissolve in my garden. The morning sun warmed my face as I drew in the scent of sweet cut grass mixed with perfumed blossoms. A hint of moist, fresh dirt mingled with the other fragrances—preferred aromatherapy for any gardener.

I laid out my Bible, journal and sweet iced tea on the small lawn table, preparing for my time with God. I enjoyed the sense of closeness to God I felt in the garden. The natural peacefulness and tranquility penetrated my spirit, allowing me to toss aside my worries and the “to-do” list and focus on the Creator.

For a moment I admired the bushy variegated leaves of the herbs lining the garden gate—lemon thyme, oregano and chives. My hollyhocks sported their nest of hearty leaves that would eventually support stalks of flowers. The bleeding hearts showcased their whimsical blooms—each peculiar bloom displayed a single white teardrop dripping from the bottom of a pink heart. Two beautiful lilies graced the corner of the garden with their soft pink waxy trumpets. Splashes of purple, yellow and white playfully laced the ground in the form of Johnny jump-ups while pink and salmon impatiens and begonias erupted among them.

God’s beauty exploded around me. Yet, that one particular spot in the garden remained empty. The green metal arbor I erected a month before remained bare. I had prepared the dirt at the base of the trellis for morning glory seeds. My mother always had a dazzling display of morning glories climbing the side of our shed while I was growing up. As I grew older, the pastel trumpets became a reminder to me that God’s mercies are new every morning. I wanted to continue the tradition of waking up to morning glories with God’s gentle reminder whispering His promise to me. I hoped for a trellis heavy with the pink, blue and purple flowers.

My disappointment grew continually when every garden shop I visited informed me they sold out of the seeds. Summer passes too quickly in northern Indiana and I feared my opportunity for adding these beauties to my garden had passed.

I sighed inwardly and turned my thoughts back to prayer. The morning glory issue dimmed in light of all I had to pray for. As a single mom, I prayed for food on the table and to be a godly example to my three young children. I prayed for my church family and the many intense trials some were experiencing. I prayed for continued emotional healing for myself and my kids as it related to the divorce. Sinking into the tranquility and quietness of the garden, I communed with God.

As my intense time of prayer began to wind down, however, the morning glory issue resurfaced. I decided to pray over my dilemma, as petty as it seemed, and asked the Lord to lead me to seeds.

After I finished breathing this final prayer, my eyes were drawn to the empty ground surrounding the trellis. I had kept it raked, weeded and prepared for planting. A new weed had sprouted that I somehow missed earlier. I knelt down to pluck it. The leaves looked familiar. Two butterfly-like leaves supported two smaller heart-shaped leaves. I recognized it almost immediately, but my mind found it difficult to process the reality. This young green sprout was the start of a morning glory vine!

I tried to reason it away. Yet, there hadn’t been a garden in the yard until this year, so it couldn’t have been a dormant seed from years past. And, ironically, it appeared in the very area where I intended to plant morning glories.

A joy welled up inside of me and I smiled at the subtleness of His message. God chose to answer my seemingly unimportant prayer in a precise and incredibly miraculous way. He was letting me know how important I was to Him—and that He was going to do more than meet my needs. He was also going to give me the desires of my heart.