Planting Hope - September 2025

Every spring, my husband and I plant a vegetable garden.  While the tiny seedlings start to grow, I imagine all the delicious produce we’ll enjoy by the end of the summer.  We choose the vegetables we most like to eat, but every year it’s a bit of a gamble.  One year we’ll have more green beans than we knew what to do with; the next year a pest will eat the sprouts before we get a single bean. When it rains too much, the zucchini get moldy.  When it’s too dry, the tomatoes aren’t happy.   Gardening always involves these inherent risks.  We can’t control the weather.  Nature seems to take a different course every year.  It’s all very uncertain.

When things are uncertain, it’s a natural impulse to hold back.  We don’t like to invest too much of ourselves unless we can be sure of the outcome.  It’s a self-protective habit rooted in fear of disappointment.  This habit can turn up in relationships when we’re not sure we can trust others, or at work when we don’t think our contributions will be valued. It keeps us from making needed changes in our lives and in our communities.  We stay quiet and keep our heads down.  We don’t want to put in extra effort if it might be for nothing.  Sometimes it just feels easier not to try.

Holding back can protect us from disappointment, but it also shuts out something we desperately need: hope. I don’t mean that dreamy, abstract, “if only…” sort of hope.  Merely wishing for things to get better isn’t enough.  We need the gritty, practical hope that fuels us to keep going in uncertain times.  We need hope that motivates us to keep trying even when the risks are high, because otherwise nothing will change.  Instead of holding back, hope propels us forward toward the things that bring meaning and joy to our lives.  Hope is the act of planting seeds, knowing that we can’t control if or how they will grow.  Because if we never plant anything, there’s no chance of a harvest.

In my own little garden, hope takes the shape of bell peppers.  I love peppers—they’re one of my favorite veggies, but we haven’t had good luck growing them.  We’ve rarely gotten more than one or two edible peppers in any given year.  Every year as we plant the little pepper seedlings, I get my hopes up.  I envision my favorite stuffed pepper recipe made with my own homegrown peppers.  And every year I’ve been disappointed when the plants start to wilt, or a pest destroys them.   This year, however, I learned something about investing in hope.  Despite our lack of success, we once again decided to plant three small bell pepper seedlings.  And this year, those three little plants produced over a dozen delicious peppers.  Every time we picked a beautiful red or yellow pepper there were more on the plant ready to ripen.  We ate stuffed peppers for days.  It’s the harvest I’ve been dreaming of, but it never would have happened if we stopped planting peppers.

Investing in hope is always risky.  It can feel vulnerable when we’re not sure how things might turn out.  And investing in hope is also worthwhile.  It opens up possibilities for things to get better.  Difficult seasons will eventually come to an end.  And when they do, we can reap the harvest of all the work that we put in to keep hope alive.  We might discover a lifelong friendship because we risked getting to know someone new.  We might find a sense of pride and achievement from investing in meaningful work.  And our lives might begin to change because we made small steps toward the kind of world we hoped for. 

May we all find ways to plant and nurture hope in these uncertain times.

Below is a short reflection activity using garden imagery to represent your hopes.  It could be a structure for prayer, a journaling template, or an inspiration for your own creative expression.  As always, take what feeds your soul and leave the rest. 

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Guided Reflection: Planting Hope

Prepare the Soil – A garden needs to be tilled and fertilized.

• What’s blocking you from investing in hope? 

• How might you remove some of the barriers?

• What support do you need (from God, from others, from yourself)?

Select your Seeds – A garden can’t grow everything at once.

• What goals would you like to invest more deeply in?

• What changes would you most like to see in your life? In the world?

Plant and Water – A garden needs regular care and tending.

• What’s one step you could take to act on your goals?

• How might you put your values into action?

• What supports could help you sustain these changes?

Wait in Hope – A garden takes time to grow.

• What is your prayer as you wait?