The Creator

Alyssa, one of the IWU interns this summer had an awesome experience the other night while she was watering the garden. When she came home and told me the story I asked her if she would share it for the blog! So here is Alyssa's story! Thanks for sharing this powerful story!

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*Names have been changed.

I was in my zone of listening to music and watering the garden when I saw Sarah* trouncing toward the garden. Her friend Amber* walked several paces behind her. Both lived nearby the gardens and tended to hang around for company while we interns were there working. I slipped off my over-the-ear ear buds and shouted out, “Hey! What’s up?” Sarah covered the rest of the distance to me and asked in a chirpy voice if she could help. I told her “Sure”, and paused my watering with the hose to get her the watering can from the shed. Amber came up a minute later and wanted to join too, so I handed her a stirrup hoe. I pointed them both toward the watermelon patch, and let the girls get to work weeding and watering.

A fantastic part of gardening that most people who have never tried it don’t realize is that it provides great opportunities for wholesome conversation. After a little while, Sarah (who is always asking questions) asked where water came from. Instead of following my almost-natural instinct in answering the question with a scientific response, I first told her that water was created by God. After creating water, He created the water cycle, which is how we always have water. Sarah wrinkled her nose in thought about the whole, “God created water” part. I gathered from her expression that she hadn’t grown up with this idea of God being the Creator.

“Sarah, have you ever heard the story of creation? How the world first began?” I asked her enthusiastically. “No,” she replied with a shrug. “Well girls, let’s work a little longer and then we’ll sit down and read the story of creation together.” They both agreed, and although Amber already knew about Genesis, soon we were sitting down reading those soul-shaking first words:

“In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth…”

We read up to the sixth day. Every few verses, Sarah would stop me and ask a powerful question—questions I sometimes still ask myself: Who created God? What is the big bang? God created all of this?

It was a humbling and overwhelming experience to share the creation story with someone for the first time. Afterword I could only pray that some spiritual seed had been planted in Sarah’s heart and that the Word of God would water it and help it grow. We may be taking care of a garden this summer, but God’s reminding me that there’s a mission greater than the physical. As Luke 12:23 mentions, “The body is more than food, and the body more than clothes.”