Sowing Seeds

by Rory Feek, Plain Values

Last night, Indiana and I spent the evening in the garden weeding, watering the many rows of vegetables, and checking on how the seeds we’ve sowed this spring are doing. The broccoli and cabbage that were abundant a month ago are almost gone, and Brussels sprouts will be soon. Most of the other warmer-weather crops are just coming in. In the last week, we’ve been harvesting zucchini and squash, we’ll be picking okra and cucumbers soon, and hopefully tomatoes and corn a short time after that.

Each spring, we till the ground in the same spot where my wife Joey always had her garden, and I continue to sow seeds and grow vegetables there­—even though I’ll never be as good at it as she was. That little patch of land here on our farm was and will always be ‘her garden.’ 

---

As the sun was setting and Indy held her little hoe and I used mine, I couldn’t help but look all around and think about how in another way, this whole farm is a garden. I thought of all the seeds that God has sown here in the last twenty-something years and the incredible fruit that has come from them. 

When we first bought our farm in the summer of 1999, the old farmhouse was in bad shape, and most of the land around it was overgrown, all in desperate need of some love and attention. The farmer who had lived here for the sixty-plus years before us was in his mid-70s and ready to hand over the skeleton key to the front door and the responsibility of the place to someone younger. Someone with more years and ambition in front of him than behind.

Honestly, it would’ve made more sense for me to buy a smaller place in town or a little subdivision. Instead, way back in ’99, God planted the idea in my mind that I should find an old farmhouse and put down roots there for myself and my children. And that idea—that thought—that seed—somehow took root. A few months later, my teenage daughters and I were scraping and painting and trying to turn this old house into a home. The work was hard, and I was soon overwhelmed, worried that I had made a mistake. But over the next couple of years, God would put people into my life to speak to me when I thought of giving up, reminding me that if I stick it out, this will be a wonderful place to grow old and one day pass on to the next generation. Like watering and weeding, I believe God provided those people and experiences to help me weather the storms of doubt. They were there to keep the weight and worries of the world from choking out the work that He had begun in the soil of my heart so that I would press on and trust that He knows what the fruit of that labor will be, even if I couldn’t yet see it. 

That was 23 years ago, and the harvest has been nothing short of miraculous. Quite often, when people come to our place these days and look around at the farm, the schoolhouse, the concert hall, and all that has come to be, they will ask, “How did you know to create all this?” And I tell them the best way I know how; by saying, “There was a master plan… it just wasn’t mine.” Of course, I have poured my heart and soul into the work, but the real growth that has happened, what it has become, and is still becoming, is all His.

Most of the time, different than the seeds we plant in our vegetable garden, we don’t know what fruit will come from the seeds God plants in our hearts and lives, and sometimes that fruit even changes over time. Our big red barn across the driveway began in 2006 as a shop—a man cave where I worked on old cars and stored the tractor and tools. A few years after that, we pushed those things out of the way and turned it into a TV studio, and I remember thinking, “Well look at that! Isn’t that amazing?” And then it became a place where we held square dances, family get-togethers, and weddings. My nephew even had his prom there. And I was elated. Again, smiling and saying to myself, “Look what God has done!” And then, one day, it was where we held a funeral—my wife, Joey’s. All of a sudden, I was disappointed in what we’d built. But then, another part of me was in awe of what He had done, realizing that somehow God had known to plant a place here at home to hold something so special and give us the opportunity to say goodbye. Now, all these years later, that red barn is called “Homestead Hall” and it’s where I perform concerts for people who travel from all over to spend an evening filled with songs and stories. It’s a place where I can walk across our driveway 10 minutes before the show, walk back during intermission, and tuck Indiana into bed. Who could’ve known that when God first planted the seed in our minds to build a barn, He had all those things in mind?

Stories like that have happened again and again here at the farm in the last two decades, from meeting my wife Joey, to our family cafes, to the one-room schoolhouse where Indy goes to school. God planted a seed and something beautiful has come to be. My job is to water them with lots of love and hope and keep the weeds of doubt and despair at bay the best I can. 

All these years later, I have come to realize that life itself is much like a garden. We are each given the opportunity to sow seeds into others’ lives just as God sows them in ours. And so, these days, I try to plant seeds and nurture them in the people around me. To see what God might do with those seeds; and what fruit might come. And honestly, I think it’s what I’m probably best at. 

When it comes to having a green thumb, my wife Joey and many other folks I know are much better gardeners than I will probably ever be. But if there is such a thing as having a green heart, I like to think that maybe I’ve got one.

~ Rory

---

This article was published in the June 2022 issue of Plain Values Magazine. If you want the latest stories every month, subscribe to the magazine at HERE. As a special thanks, get 10% off your subscription with the code “GAB23”!

---