Noonday Notes, Issue 35
Sowing seeds and reaping joy.
Noonday Notes
Issue No. 35
February 20th, 2026
February, three years ago, I was in a dark place. A wilderness. A desert. I had just come home from inpatient treatment for depression. My marriage was ending. I was in recovery from cannabis addiction. I was 40 years old and my life looked like the lyrics to a John Prine song.
Two months earlier I was on my bathroom floor in tears calling 988. I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t want to keep living my life as it was. I literally cried out to God “come and get me, I can’t do this myself.”
I knew about God’s offer my whole life. But I wasn’t ready. I thought I could manage my own life (literally everyone in my family reading this right now is laughing out loud). I was a hot mess. It was just me and my tarot cards, self help books, and my self-made spirituality.
On that bathroom floor a seed was planted. Most people hear the part of my story when I received salvation, but the soil had to be prepared, seeded, and watered. If my salvation were a seed packet, it would say “Days to Maturity: 138 days” Sow on 12/23/22. Harvest on 5/10/23.
Psalm 126:5 reminds us, “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.” I didn’t know it then, but my tears were watering something God intended to grow. When we hand our lives over to God, He grows things we never could on our own. Freedom is on the other side of surrender.
This past week adults and children have been putting seeds and plants into the ground. Planting seeds is an act of faith. You press something small and unimpressive into the soil and trust that life is happening where you cannot see it.
Lent is a time of going into the darkness like a seed, having faith in the Light we cannot yet see. God is the One who designed the garden in the first place. Of course He knows how to make it grow.
So this week let’s ask ourselves: What seeds are we planting? What seeds are we watering? And do you trust that God will bring them to life?
He is faithful. And He is still in the business of growing gardens out of surrendered soil.