Episode 1: A Call to Flourish

Carol Anne Beck: Have you ever been deeply moved by God’s creation? Erin Davis has.

Erin Davis: Just a few months before I recorded this season of The Deep Well, I stood at the base of a giant tree . . . and bawled my eyes out!

Carol Anne: Welcome to The Deep Well with Erin Davis. I’m Carol Anne Beck. God doesn’t just save you and then ask you to hunker down and survive a hostile world. Instead, He created you to flourish! 

Erin Davis is going to show us what godly flourishing looks like in this season of The Deep Well. We’re calling this season “Among the Sequoias.” Erin’s been giving us the background to that name. When we left her, she was weeping next to an example of God’s towering creation.

Erin: The name of that tree is the Grizzly Giant. He stands 209 feet tall. That’s really, really tall! And he is inside the Mariposa Grove of the giant sequoias in Yosemite National Park. I had dreamed of seeing those sequoias for years!

In fact, my goal was to spend my fortieth birthday at the base of a sequoia tree. That seemed like a good way for me to remember my insignificance . . . especially compared with the significance of our awesome God!

But, I turned forty in April of 2020, and if you remember that year, nobody was flying anywhere! So my dream would have to wait. But then, three years later, through the generosity of some Christian friends halfway around the world, and through a series of events that only God could orchestrate, I spent my forty-third birthday at the bottom of those towering trees. I cried the whole trip!

I’m tearing up now, because I am so grateful for the lessons God has taught me from the psalm we’re going to spend this series in, Psalm 92. Those lessons became so real to me as I finally stood beneath the giant sequoias.

Here on The Deep Well we like to dive deep into Scripture, and we do that in lots of different ways. 

In this season we’re going to park in a single psalm. Though I sometimes exaggerate, this is not an exaggeration. I have been parked in Psalm 92 for more than two years!

Does a passage of Scripture ever just grab hold of your life like that and it won’t let you go? I hope so! That’s what Psalm 92 has done for me. So, we’re going to walk through the entire psalm together in this series, but we’re going to start kind of two-thirds of the way through, in verses 12–13.

The reason for that is because as I’ve studied this psalm, soaked in this psalm, written notes in my Bible about this psalm . . . (If you could see my Bible, you’d see that corner of the page where Psalm 92 is, is ripped out, because I’ve turned to this psalm so often.)

As I’ve really soaked in it, I’ve started to think of these verses 12 and 13 as really the thesis statement for the whole psalm. Remember back to your college days? The thesis statement is the big idea that the rest of your thoughts are based on. 

As I read these verses (I’m going to read them slowly), let me give you an assignment: Every time you come to the word “flourish” in Psalm 92, verses 12–13, I want you to underline it or circle it in your Bible. Are you ready? Here we go! 

Psalm 92:12–13: 

The righteous flourish [that’s your first cue for you to pick up your pen!] like the palm tree and
   grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
They are planted in the house of the Lord;
   they flourish in the courts of our God.

Now, no word is wasted in the Word of God, so you should pay attention when things are repeated, and here we have “flourish” repeated twice in two verses. The picture here is of a tree. Now, the passage specifically mentions two kinds of trees. 

The palm tree, which are these tall, prominent, straight, fruitful trees you see when you go to the beach, and then there’s the cedar tree. Specifically, the psalmist wrote about the cedars of Lebanon. I hope you know your whole Bible. If you do, you will know that the cedars of Lebanon were special trees to God’s people.

David used wood from the cedars of Lebanon to build his own palace. That comes from 2 Samuel 5:11 and 1 Chronicles 17:1, and then his son Solomon would later use the planks from the cedars of Lebanon to construct that special sacred temple for the Lord. That comes from 2 Chronicles 2:3–8.

So, to be true, these cedars of Lebanon are not as tall and regal as a palm tree. They’re not as giant as the giant sequoias, but they’re symbolic throughout Scripture of strength. And here the psalmist is using that image of the cedars of Lebanon to describe the people of God. 

Here are a couple other places that the psalmist wrote about these trees. In Psalm 104:16 the psalmist said,

The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly,
   the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. 

So the cedars of Lebanon are not tiny trees, they’re big strong trees. And one thing that’s always true about big, strong trees is that they have deep roots! And the way the psalmist described them in Psalm 92 is, “flourishing trees planted by the Lord.” If you keep reading in Psalm 104, he talks about those trees again. In verse 17 he said: 

In them [in the cedars of Lebanon] the birds build their nests;
   the stork has her home in the fir trees. 

So, why am I talking so much about trees? Well, these trees that the psalmist is referring to in both of these psalms—Psalm 92 and 104—they’re full of life, and not just their own life. Because these trees are flourishing, they have become a place for others to flourish! Birds build their nests in their branches. I imagine that’s a pretty good picture of what you want your life to be. You want to be thriving.

And as women, we’re not always willing to thrive for ourselves, but we want to thrive because we know on some level, that when we are thriving, those we love thrive! 

I was at the baseball park just this week as I was preparing to teach. I’m a mother of four sons; I spend a lot of time at the baseball park! I was sitting in my camp chair and was just watching all of the other families show up. There were all these women attached to so much life! One woman waddled up to the field. She had to be just weeks away from giving birth, very pregnant! She was growing life inside of her.

And then a few minutes later another woman came and she was pushing a stroller. She was moving the wheels back and forth, back and forth, as women tend to do when we’re trying to get that baby to sleep. She was helping new life inside that stroller rest. 

And then, a few minutes later along comes a grandma with whom I assume was her granddaughter. They ran off, and she started pushing that little girl on the swings. Once again, God drew my heart to Psalm 92 and reminded me that when a woman of God flourishes, it never stops with her. It extends beyond her to those God has brought into her life.

You’ve heard it said that, “If Momma ain’t happy . . .” what? “. . . ain’t nobody happy!” Another way to say that is, “If Momma ain’t flourishing, nobody’s flourishing.” As I started to soak in Psalm 92, I began to pray that everyone in my life—not because of me, but because of God’s work in me and through me—would begin to flourish!

My husband, Jason, I want him to flourish! My sons, I want them to flourish! The people that I work with . . . There’s a Post-it note on my computer monitor with this verse, and I use it to remind me that I want them to flourish. My pastors . . . it is good for me when my pastors are flourishing. It’s not good for me, it’s not good for the flock, when they aren’t.

So, an outflow of Psalm 92 is that I’ve begun to pray that my pastors would flourish, that my neighbors would flourish, that my friends would flourish. It’s not because I want Erin to have the Midas touch, that everything I would touch would turn to gold, but because I want to be a conduit for the good work of God, that somehow as God wells up in me springs of everlasting life, that would water those around me, because God’s work in me should never stop with me. You want that, too, I know you do! 

So, my fascination with the giant sequoias collided with my study of Psalm 92, and I began to ask the Lord to transform my life, to make me one of those giant flourishing trees that I longed to see, and got to see not long ago.

Let me take us back to Psalm 92. I’m going to read to us verse 12 again. This time, keep in mind those giant trees and with the people that your life is attached to, “The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.”

I think this passage gives us a vision for what the lives of those who love and obey God can look like. Don’t miss it. I know I’m being redundant. (If God’s Word can be redundant, so can I!) The word the psalmist used for the lives of the righteous is “flourish!”

I checked several trusted and beloved Bible translations. Almost all of them said “flourish;” I found one that said, “thrive.” The idea is that we’re healthy, that there are good things flowing in us and through us; that we’re not weak and anemic; that when others look at our lives they see some kind of flourishing!

I’ve got to tell you, I’m concerned about how many Christian women I interact with aren’t thriving, that are in constant survival mode. Their spiritual lives are marked by struggle. They (I could say “we,” because at times this is me, too) . . . we have weak and anemic prayer lives.

We know we should be praying, but we would never call our prayer lives flourishing. We’re barely opening God’s Word, and when we do, we’re not getting much from it. It’s not because the Word of God is not living and active—it is! (see Heb. 4:12) But it is because we’re not flourishing on some other level.

And that can start to feel so normal; it can start to feel so universal. And yet, if we take God at His Word, and we do here on The Deep Well, the lives of those of us who follow Christ are supposed to be marked by flourishing.

I know I’m being redundant, but listen again to verses 12–13: “The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God.” 

Again, what the psalmist is telling us here is that the Christian life is a life of flourishing. Now, this is not “health and wealth;” this is why we must know our whole Bibles! Because Jesus Himself said that in this world you’re going to have troubles (see John 16:33).

And He called you to pick up your cross (see Mark 8:34), and he warned us that there is an enemy who is relentless, and he is always going to be trying to take us out (see Matt. 10:26). I experienced some of those “flaming darts” this week, because I always do before I prepare to teach.

So, I want to make something really clear, that the Scripture’s call to a flourishing life is not synonymous with having an easy life. 

 

You probably shouldn’t ask me about gardening, because I will never shut up! But one of the things I know for sure about gardening is that plants that never face resistance won’t make it. 

If you decide you’re going to grow plants from seeds in your kitchen window, that’s great, go for it! But get a little oscillating fan and put it on those plants, because if you don’t, as soon as you take them out of the kitchen window and put them in the dirt, they will die! Why? Because they don’t know how to stand up to the wind.

This is one of the things that makes the Christian life make no sense to those who don’t know Jesus. Because I’m not talking about a life of comfort here. I’m not saying that the psalmist said, “Move your life to easy street, where it feels like you’re flourishing all the time!”

And yet, I can’t deny that God’s Word tells us that despite all of the challenges—and there are many—of being broken people on a broken planet, somehow, God’s people flourish. And again, if God’s Word says it, I believe it.

If the psalmist said that the righteous flourish—this is where this psalm met me in my actual life—and I’m not flourishing in some area of my life . . . If some part of my life looks like a plant that needs water desperately, or maybe it’s long dead and it hasn’t been cared for, then that should serve as a little warning light on the dash of our life.

Now, I gotta be honest, when the warning lights pop up on the dash of my car, I mostly ignore them. That’s why I have a husband who makes sure that I have the oil changed and those kinds of things! And it’s not a disaster, necessarily, when it happens in my car. 

It is a disaster when it happens in my life, when there are areas of my heart, my life, my world that aren’t flourishing. God exposes those things, and that light starts to blink. When I ignore it, it can be pretty catastrophic! So let me just walk us through a list. 

This is between you and the Lord, and maybe it’s for today, and maybe it’s for ten years from now. But I’d love for you just to keep a checklist in your mind and heart and ask God to help you think through each of these areas through this grid: “God, am I flourishing?”

How about your study of God’s Word? We have to start there, because so much flows from there! And I hope you already know this: your time in God’s Word is much like the manna in the Old Testament. 

God told His people, “You can’t store it up!” And certainly we can hide God’s Word in our heart and it builds up over time. God uses it to mold us and shape us, but you can’t get by today on what you read in Scripture yesterday. You need it today!

Or even that moment five years ago when you were so drawn to God’s Word and you grew so much from it. You can’t keep living off of that. You need to be in God’s Word now and today! So, can you honestly say that your study of God’s Word is flourishing?

How about your relationships with other Christians? They’re supposed to be distinctly different, you know, than our relationships with non-Christians. It is a blinking light on the dash of your life if your relationships with fellow believers feel distant, or non-existent . . . not problem-free. We don’t come to Christ and never disagree on anything ever again. But are your Christian relationships flourishing? 

How about your job, whatever that is? Scripture gives us reason to think that even when we are serving under a bad boss in a job we hate, somehow we can still flourish! Is that true of you?

How about your church . . .your church? Now, it’s Christ’s Church, I know that. But I’m talking about your church that you attend, the church where you serve, the church that you call your home church. Is it flourishing? It’s important that it is.

How about your children and your grandchildren? Are they flourishing? 

What about your prayer life? I’m pretty honest here on The Deep Well that my prayer life is a point of weakness. I so admire those saints who have rich prayer lives! We call them “prayer warriors,” right? That’s never marked me.

But I do have a commitment to prayer because God calls me to it. I do talk with Jesus daily. For me, that’s the mark of a flourishing prayer life. 

How about your health? We’ll talk more about that in a future episode, but that matters to the Lord too.

How about your thought life? Would you say what’s happening inside your skull is flourishing? Because it’s possible for everything on the exterior to be going fine, and inside your mind you’re all churned up.

How about your joy? Do you have flourishing joy, or do you have weak and anemic joy? 

There are probably other areas, and I don’t want to try and come up with a comprehensive list. Because what I love is that my partner in The Deep Well podcast is the Holy Spirit. He actually does all the work.

He’s the One who’s going to work in your heart as a result of our time together. He might put His finger on an area of your life that’s not flourishing that I would never even think of. But maybe it starts with you asking Him, “Am I living a flourishing life?

Are there areas that you need to tend to? That takes time. It takes time to check in and slow down. It takes time—and humility, frankly—to admit that everything is not okay. We like to think we’ve kept all the plates spinning, which we know we can’t apart from the Lord. It can be hard to be honest.

But if God’s already working to show you an area of your life where you can honestly say, “I’m not flourishing,” that’s Him, that’s not me. You should know that it’s ultimately a mercy. He doesn’t do that to squash you. He does that so that together you can tend to that area. I’m convinced that God wants you to flourish!

You say, “Erin, you’re getting a lot out of a couple of verses in Psalm 92!” How about John 10:10? It was Jesus Himself who said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” You fellow gardeners know, Jesus was using plant language there!

Elsewhere Scripture describes the evidence of a heart satisfied in Jesus as being loaded down with fruit. That’s flourishing! Listen to John 10:10 from the New Living Translation. He said, “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” 

I don’t talk much about the enemy, because he doesn’t deserve glory, but he does have a plan for your life, and it’s right there in Scripture. His plan is to kill and destroy, and if he cannot keep you from following Jesus, he will work very hard to make sure you are a miserable follower of Jesus, that your spiritual life produces almost no fruit, and that you spend your days in barely-getting-by mode.

And Jesus said, “No, no. I’m the answer to that. I’m the opposite of that. I’m the solution to that! And the reason I came is that they would have flourishing lives!” 

Jesus described God’s gifts to us this way in Luke 6:38, “Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.” Agrarian language again. The Bible is, among other things, a farmer’s almanac, and the image here is that of a winepress, a vat full of grapes.

I live in a little town with lots of wineries, and every year we have an annual grape stomp, just like you see in I Love Lucy. I competed for my first time last year; I did not win the trophy!

But there’s this huge bucket full of grapes and everybody jumps in and we stomp, and we stomp and we stomp. It doesn’t take long, and grape juice starts to flow out of that and it fills the containers, and we have to swap in other containers. That’s how Scripture describes the gifts that God wants to give us.

Ephesians 1:8 tells us that He doesn’t give us stingy gifts, He doesn’t give us “just enough,” but that the gifts of God’s grace are “lavished” on us. Again, the picture of what God has for you is bountiful! He gives generously, and I’m afraid it’s so obvious that we missed it. He gives so generously that we might have overflowing, flourishing lives!

For those of you who value a deep theology—and I hope that’s you—you might be having a reflex in your heart right now, some resistance. I said before that this is not health and wealth theology, because that cannot ever line up with Scripture.

Anybody who ever tells you that God’s primary objective for your life is for you to be happy is not telling you what God’s Word tells you. And if I ever tell you that, I expect you to call me on it. These are not warm fuzzies, that the righteous flourish, this is a reality!

We have everything we need. That comes from 1 Peter. We have Jesus as Savior. We have the Holy Spirit in us. We have the church to support and challenge us. We have the Word of God to equip us. We have a mission: to tell the world there is true hope, that flourishing is possible because of Jesus!

Jesus Himself described our lives with Him like drinking from a fountain of living water (see John 4:14), some place that we can drink from that would satisfy our deepest thirst. So, how can these internal realities of everything God has given us, how can they not seep through our spiritual pores and show up in a flourishing life?

I’ve thought a lot about this series. I’ve wanted to walk that edge of calling you to flourishing without defaulting to something that Scripture doesn’t say, which is that life will be easy. And where I’ve landed is that, in our current church culture, we really value transparency . . . and we should.

But we’ve been so busy telling each other how much we struggle—because we want to be transparent—that some of us have forgotten to declare that God is making all things new! Is God making you new? He’s making me new!

Is He making your marriage new? He’s making mine new. Is He transforming your parenting from the inside out? He’s transforming mine. Is He changing your community? He’s making my community new. Your church?

He’s making all things new! Everywhere we look there is evidence of God’s touch causing God’s people to flourish. And while I don’t want us to stop being honest about the struggle, I want us to flip that coin over and also celebrate that because of who He is and because of what He’s done, there are areas of our life where we’re really flourishing.

Here’s where Psalm 92 started to really take root and grow in my own heart. I started to realize that it was hard for me to be salt and light—as Scripture called me to—when I was barely getting by. It’s hard for me to live a life of praise and worship to the God who is so worthy when my head is always barely above water.

I don’t know everybody in this room and I don’t know everybody who’s going to listen to this podcast, but I do know that some of us are walking through truly dark valleys, hard things, things that have been hard for a long time and are going to stay hard for a long time.

But this is not cotton ball theology. If we take God at His Word, even in the valley, because of Jesus, we can flourish. 

I wanted to give you an example of that from somebody that I know, and I had to think about it long and hard because while I do have a lot of Christian friends—thank God! where would I be without my Christian friends!? And while I am surrounded by a lot of wise, Word-saturated women, I couldn't think of a lot of examples of people of whom I could say, “She’s truly flourishing in the valley!”

But then I thought of my friend Gwen. Gwen’s story is a hard story. Several years ago her husband, who had never been sick a day in his life, died in her arms. And though Gwen should now be thinking of retirement, she can’t, because she is the foster mom to a houseful of many children—from babies to teenagers—all of which have endured serious trauma.

And if you’ve been around children who have endured trauma, you know that comes out as anger.
And so my friend Gwen—widowed, living her life without the husband she adored—told me the other day, “Erin, I’m it. I’m all these kids have!” She meant that in a human sense, she knows the Lord . . .

But she’s right, if someone needs to be driven to the orthodontist appointment, Gwen takes them. If the baby’s sick, Gwen takes care of them. If somebody’s struggling, Gwen’s the listening ear. And yet, the fruit that hangs from her life is so obvious you can’t miss it! The smile on her face is so genuine! 

I can say this and mean it: “Gwen is flourishing!” She’s not wilting; she’s not dying on the vine. She’s flourishing. And that is the supernatural work of Jesus in her. That is the supernatural work of Jesus that I want to be true of me, and I want to be true of you.

So in this series as we walk through Psalm 92, I hope you hear the call of Scripture. It is the call to the flourishing life. I’ve made a vow before the Lord—I think I’ve probably told you about it before: anytime I get to teach the Bible, I want to make it very easy for you to be do-ers and very hard for you to be hearers only (see James 1:22).

So I don’t want you to read Psalm 92 and think, Oh, that’s such a nice thought, the righteous flourish. I want you to ask the Lord what it means. And so, as we wrap up this session, that would be my encouragement to you. Spend a few minutes with the Lord, this is between you and Him.

I don’t actually even know what flourishing looks like in your life or in mine. It might be different for each of us, and it can be really hard to self-assess. I had to go to people who love me and who I trust and say, “Am I flourishing? I feel like I am but I’m not sure I am.” All of them said I was not! So then I had to do some hard work.

Just spend a few minutes with the Lord—we’ll do it here in the room too. Ask the Lord, “Am I flourishing?” Go ahead, and then I’ll pray for us. 

Lord, thank You that because of You—and only because of You—we can flourish. Lord, thank You that You are changing us from the inside out, and sometimes we forget that there’s supposed to be evidence in our real lives of the radical work You’ve done inside of us. So, I pray for my sisters and friends who are listening to this. I pray by the power of your Holy Spirit You would expose any area of their lives where they’re not flourishing, that they would take You at Your Word and that they would do the hard work with You by their side to live flourishing lives for Your glory. It’s in Your name I pray, amen.

Carol Anne: Erin Davis has been calling all of us to flourish under the Lord’s care. If some of those questions resonated with you, if you feel like you’ve just barely been making it, keep listening to this whole series on The Deep Well. The series is called “Among the Sequoias,”and I have good news: you can hear the entire series now.

We’ve released all the episodes at once so you can listen at whatever pace is right for you. For more details on The Deep Well podcast, visit ReviveOurHearts.com. That’s also where you’ll discover the whole podcast family. You’ll find stories, discussions, and teaching to help you connect with God’s Word and continue flourishing, even after this series is over.

The podcast family includes Revive Our Hearts, with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, and Grounded. One of the co-hosts is our very own Erin Davis!

Erin: Carol Anne, do you remember how you and I met? 

Carol Anne: I do, yes!

Erin: Okay. . .what do you remember?

Carol Anne: . . . through our mutual friend, Hannah, who works for you. She let me know that you had asked me to be a part of Grounded. [Erin agrees.] And I was absolutely shocked!--but thrilled to be able to tell the goodnesses of God in my life through my story.

Erin: So Deep Well listeners, if you don’t know about Grounded, Grounded is a weekly videocast and podcast that Revive Our Hearts produces. I get to host that along with my good friends Dannah Gresh and Portia Collins. And I promise I don’t say this to all my Grounded guests, but you are in the top tier of favorite Grounded guests we’ve ever had, because you’ve just told your story so beautifully!

And we have great guests who tell all kinds of stories. But Grounded is really a place where we interview people, we hear their stories, and we point women to God’s Word. It’s one of my favorite things I get to do at Revive Our Hearts, and we’ve loved having you be a part of it!

Carol Anne: It has been a delight for me, so thank you very, very much!

Erin: You can check out Grounded  by heading to ReviveOurHearts.com. When you do that you’ll find the Revive Our Hearts podcast family. The Deep Well is there, and you can also check out Grounded.

Carol Anne: One thing that sets The Deep Well podcast apart is a segment called Erin Unscripted. It’s time for me to fire questions at Erin!

Erin Unscripted

Erin: Alright, I’m ready!

Carol Anne: Are you sure?

Erin: I think I’m ready . . . no, I’m not sure. 

Carol Anne: We see in Psalm 92 that the psalmist does say that the righteous will flourish, that the Holy Spirit will produce the fruit of the Spirit in those who have the Holy Spirit. 

My question is, for those of us who have found ourselves in trials through depression, through these dark times, what would your encouragement be for people who are walking through those dark valleys, where they feel like they are not flourishing?

Erin: I think it is an inner flourishing versus an external flourishing. We can hear that word “flourishing” and think that has something to do with our circumstances—or even something to do with how we feel, or something to do with how the world is operating around us, or how the people that we love are operating. 

Those are all external factors. I would never say those things don’t matter. They matter! It all matters. But the kind of flourishing I really feel like the psalmist was writing about . . . you alluded to it when you mentioned the fruit of the Spirit.

You don’t see the fruit of the Spirit physically in somebody's life. It happens internally first and then you can see evidence of it. I really think it’s an internal flourishing. Well, what does that mean? Does it mean, like, my physical heart is healthy, my blood pressure’s good? No.

I just feel like it is that peace that doesn’t make sense that Scripture talks about (see Phil. 4:7). It’s the joy in hard places that Scripture talks about (see Acts 16:22–25). It’s faith, even. Faith is an evidence of flourishing, that your hope is in something else (see Heb. 11:1).

So, do I think you can be in the valley . . . and flourishing? I do! And what a paradox that is! Does it look the same in everybody’s life at the same time? Probably not. But I think only because of Jesus is that possible.

I’d turn the tables on you, Carol Anne. One of the reasons I was excited to have you as co-host here is because I know part of your story. You’ve been in the valley and flourished. Do you want to talk about that at all? 

Carol Anne: Yes, while you were speaking, I was actually thinking: a call to flourish does not negate grief. It does not negate the valley. Like you were talking about that paradox, the two can exist at the same time, and God says that joy can exist with grief and with sorrow (see 2 Cor. 4:7–12).

We see that in Christ on the cross. He was willing to suffer, and we don’t see this jubilant smile expressed through Scripture, but we see Him willing to submit to the Father’s will.

Erin: And Scripture says it was because of the joy that was set before Him that He endured the cross—so there’s that paradox again (see Heb. 12:2). I wouldn’t want to try to remove all mystery, like, “How can that be true?” or “What does that even look like?” I’ll admit, it’s mysterious.

Carol Anne: Right, and anyone who has experienced that paradox, I don’t know that they can fully put their finger on it, other than it is the Holy Spirit working the fruit of the Spirit in the believer. Right? 

I love that you alluded to gardening; I am a fellow plant mama. Well, my tending to live things more happens inside the house with my children, and then my plants . . .

Erin: Do you have succulents?

Carol Anne: No, I know that succulents and aloe are supposed to be the easiest things to grow!

Erin: That’s why I asked. I kill succulents left and right! I can keep other things alive. 

Carol Anne: I’m in the season of propagating right now, and I had a pothos plant, and I had a vine six to eight feet long.

I went and snipped it all apart, and there were several segments that had no roots and no leaves. And I was like, “Hmmm, I’m just really interested. . .” So I stuck like eight to ten in a little vase with water and over the next four weeks I watched them root, and they are now growing these tiny little leaves!

And it has been so refreshing for me! I’ve actually just walked through a small season of a very dark valley. I believe it is related to trauma and grief that I have known in losing my first husband. But watching those little propagates grow and then hearing you talk about this was like one of those moments through which the Holy Spirit just refreshed my heart. So, thank you. 

Erin: I did warn Deep Well listeners in this season that you should not get me started on gardening because I will not shut up! But I’ve experienced the same thing. I have a huge vegetable garden.

In the winter you look out and it looks dead! It’s gross, it’s brown. I tend to overwinter spinach, so that means I plant all this spinach at the end of the season. And in the winter you’re like, “Oh, they didn’t make it. There’s nothing happening; they’re dead!”

Yet, the first warm sunny day, that overwintered spinach comes up from the ground. It was there the whole time! The Lord was doing what the Lord does with seeds and plants the whole time. So I do think that’s a beautiful picture you just gave us of these little vines that seemed to have no fruit, and yet there was life in them. 

There was the pain of the pruning, and yet there was life in them. It is all paradoxical, but I do think it’s possible to flourish in the valley.

Carol Anne: It just looks different in different seasons, and that’s okay. To submit to the Holy Spirit in that. My flourishing today may look different, but as long as I am obeying Scripture and putting myself under the teaching of Scripture, putting myself in the Word around people who are in the Word, then just like those little propagates that I put in the right conditions, they will grow because there were cells of life inside those tiny little stems. They produced roots in there, and they’re now growing leaves . . . and the Holy Spirit lives inside me!

Erin: I need to go to a greenhouse and fill my cart! Let’s go after this! (laughter)

Carol Anne: I know! Let’s go after this!

Erin: You did lose your first husband. He died in a car accident when you were both very young. I’m sure you can remember that valley. I haven’t been in that valley, but we’ve all been in some valleys, and there’s almost a sweetness in the valley. 

There’s an intimacy in the valley that, in hindsight, sometimes I think we can say, “I wouldn’t choose it, but I wouldn’t change it,” because there was a brand of flourishing there. Was that your experience when you lost your husband?

Carol Anne: Absolutely, a hundred percent! I look back and I’ve said that so many times: “I never want to repeat that, ever, in any way shape or form!” But I don’t want to trade it either, because God taught me things and grew me in ways that I would have never asked for in that way! 

God pruned me and shaped me, and I can see things that look like Christ that weren’t there five years ago, weren’t there even four years ago, three, two. By His grace He has grown me through the most difficult thing that I suspect I may experience in this life. 

Erin: I think that is the heartbeat of what the psalmist was describing: the righteous will flourish—against all odds, despite what it might look like from outer appearances. Despite the fact that you were burying your husband just a few years into your marriage. There’s something that the Lord can supernaturally do that can be described as flourishing!

Carol Anne: How can you know God really loves you? Do you ever doubt that He could actually love you? In the next episode, Erin will show you why you can be confident in God’s love. You can hear the whole season, “Among the Sequoias,” out now.

The Deep Well with Erin Davis is part of the Revive Our Hearts podcast family, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the ESV.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.