Jessica Levy Books

In the middle of a North Carolina summer, a person who cares for a garden becomes keenly aware of the needs of the plants. Plants have two basic needs: light and water. The light is not a problem in the middle of a southeastern July. Water becomes the most important tool in the garden. It becomes the reason I feel guilty for neglecting my plants on busier days. Most of them, if accustomed to the climate, thrive in the sticky, hot oven that overcomes the region mid-July. Like me, many of them just can’t take it. Absent the ability to escape into artificially air conditioned space, they wilt and waste away. I’ve seen it happen to my sugar snap peas and several delicate salad bases. After a few days of mid-90s temperatures, the relief comes for the plants who stand upon their last legs. Oh, the rain! The torrential pour that redeems them back to life and causes those who were already doing well to thrive overnight!

If you have read my first blog post, you know that this blog is named after a vision God gave me of a girl and a sword. He had shown me that in a forest ablaze, a life seemingly disintegrating before my eyes, he would arm me and keep me and I would not even smell like smoke. And for the five years that spanned that particular trial, that’s exactly what he did.

But what do you do once the forest has burned? When you have tended to your bruises and surrendered to God’s hand, when he has provided you with all you needed to stand, but still it burned? When you have learned a whole new way to live, content in every circumstance (Phil. 4:11), confident that God is your source, but you look around and you are surrounded only by ashes and nothing?

I imagine Joseph in the cistern, stripped and tossed away by his own flesh and blood. Sold as a slave, debased and devalued, taken to a distant land. A taste of freedom and prosperity, a sincere attempt to rebuild, and dashed again by a coat and betrayal! Holed up in a prison cell, falsely accused and hope waning, Joseph found it in God to hold steady to his sword while his forest fell to the flames. Two years he spent among the ashes. We are not told much of the conversations that took place between God and Joseph during this time, but having stared at the burnt remains of my own life, I can imagine. I imagine Joseph reflected on the evil paid to him by his brothers, missed his father and his mother’s other son, questioned God’s providence, and then became restored. I imagine he forgave in that time, traded in a hard heart in that time, became a light in that time, and received a new vision from his true king.

I imagine this because it’s where God put me after the blaze. The new vision: a girl, once again standing alone, once again in the middle of the land. The forest was no more. The trees that belonged to dreams that came before her had been leveled. Instead, the land was clear and vast. It went on as far as eyes could carry. A nearly hopeless picture, much like the bottom of the empty cistern or the desolate prison cell. Yet, there was peace in the vision, confidence even, there was direction here in the dry land. In the forest, the girl leaned upon her sword, clad in full armor. It was God’s provision to protect her from the flames. In the open field, she bore no shield, no chainmail adorned her. She was dressed comfortably and she loosely held her sword, ready in hand. Wait, was that a sword? Zoom in: no sword at all. It was a hoe!

For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God.

HEBREWS 6:7 (ESV)

When God once again restored Joseph, he was positioned “in charge of the whole land of Egypt” (Genesis 41:41). Having been freed from prison to interpret Pharaoh’s dream, Joseph (through God’s gift) had correctly predicted a devastating famine throughout the land. In his new position, he found himself granting mercy to his brothers who had traveled from Canaan in pursuit of food. It was there (after some goings-on) that Joseph revealed himself to his brothers and granted them forgiveness through one of the most inspiring stories of God’s restoration in the Old Testament: “And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you” (45:5).

In the year of 2020, we have seen a devastating virus, government corruption, the darkness of the human condition through racism and riot. We have seen floods and fires, conflict and criticism, judgment and isolation. There are memes circulating that poke fun at 2020, the year that raineth down crap upon the earth. Curses on this year have been spoken, people have wished away the remainder of the year, perhaps in exasperation, perhaps in fear of what is to come.

But what if this year is blessed? What if it is bruised and bleeding in a cistern only to be redeemed into favor, what if the flames have cultivated the soil? What if the rain has fallen on this year because God has seen ahead of it and is setting it “to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (50:20)? We need to change our vision, exchange our sword for a hoe. We need to allow this land, this time, to be cultivated, rain and all, for the sake of all of us.

As hard as it might be to watch, when forest is cleared, the land becomes useful for growing that which will feed. It becomes useful for building. The flames and the rain, the imprisonment and the betrayal, the marital struggle and the brokenness, the ailment and the fight, all have devastated the land to the point where it can be intentionally re-purposed. God will have his way with or without us. The year 2020 belongs to him, your and my lives belong to him, this is the day the Lord has made! I’m planning to be part of it. Let’s grab a hoe and get to work!