My favorite day of the year isn’t my birthday. It’s not Christmas, or Mother’s Day, or Valentines. My favorite day isn’t actually a Holiday at all. My favorite day of the year is the day that Evie and I spend, knee-deep in dirt and muddy to our elbows, planting our family’s garden.

This is our third year planting our garden. It’s something that Ev really wanted to do, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that her Mommy doesn’t have the best track record of keeping plants alive. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I’d probably kill all of our veggies. And so we planted. We built three 5×5 raised beds over the weekend while Graham was out of town; sowing seeds in little rows, using our hands to dig out divots in the dirt.

Now that little garden is home to me. Each season it becomes a resting place. Planting every Spring and Fall. Watering it in the early morning. Racing outside after school to see what’s sprouted. I find peace there.

And there is something so symbolic… so beautiful… about the entire process – about taking something that shows no signs of life, putting it in the ground and burying it, and stepping back while God takes that thing and brings from it something new.

It reminds me that, often, the only way out is through. Through the dirt. Through the pain. Through the grit and the rain and the growth. Through it all. It reminds me that life is a process of becoming that is, even in the most difficult of times, overwhelmingly beautiful and miraculous. Out of nothing – something. Out of nothing – a feast.

So no matter what storm you’re facing – no matter what you’re going through, know this:

You are beautiful. You are becoming. And He is always Faithful to finish what He’s begun.