What Gardening Taught Me About God, Adam, and the Fall

This year, I decided to take on uncharted territory: creating a garden.

My husband has always been the green thumb in our family. Gardening has always been more of his thing than mine. After years of having no garden, I decided I was going to tackle it myself—and I went all in.

I took a section of our backyard and transformed it into a growing space where I could produce food for my family. What began with excitement quickly became a lesson in patience, persistence, and humility.

There has been plenty of trial and error.

This season, I've learned what worked, what didn't, and what I'll need to do differently next year, Lord willing. I've battled weeds, dug through soil, moved plants, dealt with pests, and discovered that growing your own food requires considerably more work than simply putting a seed in the ground.

But somewhere in the middle of all that work, gardening began teaching me something much bigger.

It gave me a deeper appreciation for God's creation.

For a minute, think about what God has truly provided through the plants He created, seriously. A tiny seed can become a plant that produces food, and that food provides our bodies with nutrients we need to live. We didn't design the process. God did.

The more I garden, the more I find myself looking at nature and thinking about the wisdom of the Creator.

While modern medicine is a tremendous blessing and has helped countless people, I also believe we should not overlook the incredible healing and nourishing properties God has placed throughout His creation. The more I garden, the more I wonder how much of God's provision we have yet to discover.

Then there was the dreaded weeding.

As I tilled the soil, dug into the ground, and fought weeds that seemed determined to take over everything I planted, my thoughts went back to Genesis.

I started thinking about Adam.

After Adam and Eve sinned, God told Adam:

“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. (Genesis 3:17-18)

As I wrestled with weeds, which were a real headache, I couldn't help but wonder what that must have been like for Adam.

Can you imagine a world before the Fall?

No weeds choking out vegetables. No thorns and thistles fighting against the crops. No death and decay as we know them. No sin separating humanity from God. What a life!

I found myself wondering what the garden would have looked like if Eve had never listened to the serpent.

Instead, sin entered the world—and with it came consequences that affected humanity and creation itself.

As I worked the soil, I began to understand in a small way what God meant when He told Adam that he would eat his food "By the sweat of your brow" (Genesis 3:19).

Gardening is not a walk in the park.

There are hot days, sore muscles, stubborn weeds, pesky bugs, and crops that don't produce what you expected. Sometimes, you plant something carefully only to watch it fail, which happened a lot in my first attempt.

But there was something else happening in that garden that made the hard work worth it.

My little one wanted to help.

She asked questions. She watched the plants grow. She helped me work in the garden and experienced firsthand the process of planting, growing, and harvesting food.

And honestly, it made me smile, especially when asking if she could pick the green beans off the stalks.

We live in a world where it is increasingly common to see young children sitting with their eyes glued to tablets and phones. Technology can be useful, but I don't want my little one to miss the wonder of God's creation because a screen is always in front of her.

Instead, she was outside, asking questions about plants, dirt, insects, and everything she saw.

And that gave me an opportunity to teach her about God and His wonderful creations.

As we worked on our first garden together, she wasn't just learning how vegetables grow. She was seeing firsthand how amazing God's creation is.

She could touch the soil, plant the seeds, watch the plants grow, and see flowers become the foods she loves.

She was experiencing something a screen could never fully reproduce, and I got to tell her about the One who created it all.

That may be one of my favorite parts of this entire gardening experience.

Every time I pull a weed, plant a seed, or harvest something from the garden, I'm reminded that God is the ultimate provider.

He created the soil, the plants, and the seeds.

He also created the human body that depends on the food those plants produce.

My first serious gardening season has been far from perfect. But perhaps that's part of the lesson.

Gardening has taught me that creation is beautiful, but it is also living in a world affected by the Fall.

And yet, even in the weeds, there is evidence of God's goodness. A seed still grows, a harvest still comes, and food still springs from the ground.

And a child can still look at a tiny seed, ask a dozen questions, and discover the wonder of the God who made it.

My husband may have been the gardener in our family, but this year I decided to step into the garden and go all in.

I thought I was simply learning how to grow food.

Instead, God used the garden to teach me about Him—and gave me the opportunity to teach my daughter, too.

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