Sowing seeds where we are

It’s remarkable how God can work through those times in our lives when we feel stuck, hemmed in by life.

So here we are in central London to attend the launch of our daughter’s book. Actually, books—there are no fewer than five in Sharon’s Sowing Seeds series, published by SPCK.

As her American publisher puts it: “Sowing Seeds aims to encourage participation, discipleship and leadership from children’s earliest years, using storytelling, singing, color, repetition, art and lots and lots of movement!”

Sowing Seeds has grown out of Diddy Disciples, an Amazon bestseller in its category and winner of “Best Resource” at the 2018 Eden Awards. Sharon now wants to extend its age range, hence the new title.

It all began some eighteen years ago when Sharon had twins, followed just fourteen months later by a third daughter. As you can imagine, quite a handful. For a time, her ministry as an Anglican priest and her work in Old Testament scholarship came to a juddering halt.

Life at home with young children can be demanding and sometimes isolating, with Radio 4 providing a little adult company between feeds, nappies and interrupted nights. It can feel as though the rest of life is on hold as you concentrate on getting through each day.

Yet something began to grow in the midst of it all. Sharon found ways to help her daughters join in worship and discover the stories of the Bible. She also drew inspiration from Glory Gang, the weekly children’s group Jacqui used to run in our vicarage in Rochdale. And so Diddy Disciples was born.

Sharon could hardly have imagined then that those days with three small daughters would lead to books helping children and churches far beyond her own home. But this is how God so often works: bringing something precious out of circumstances we would never have chosen.

Perhaps Teresa of Ávila, one of my favourite saints, said it best: “The Lord walks among the pots and pans helping you both interiorly and exteriorly.”

I saw something similar in Brenda, a member of our congregation in Rochdale whose great ambition was to be a missionary in China. However, family responsibilities put paid to that dream. A farmer’s daughter, she needed to care for her father while continuing her work as a cookery demonstrator.

If she couldn’t go to China, she concluded, China would have to come to her.

Brenda was always coming to me with bright ideas, many of them quite impractical, even daft. But I always listened, because now and again she would come up with a gem.

This was in the 1980s, when China was beginning to open up. Her idea was to establish a link with the Chinese authorities and offer hospitality to visiting Chinese officials. It sounded like another of Brenda’s off-the-wall suggestions, but even so, I said: “Brenda, go for it!”

And she did. She contacted the Chinese consulate in Manchester, who to my surprise agreed to her proposal.

So on Saturday evenings she would host a meal for a few Chinese visitors and church members. I well remember a long conversation about the Christian faith with one official, an aviation specialist. We were starting from his zero understanding.

This was before the Tiananmen Square protests and the subsequent crackdown, and I can’t remember whether those Saturday visits continued afterwards.

We will never know what seeds bore fruit in China from that farmhouse at the end of Stakehill Lane. But Brenda had found an unexpected way to follow her calling, right where she was.

Then there is the apostle Paul, in yet another Roman prison. Here was the high-mileage messenger, eager to take the Gospel to every corner of the Roman Empire, finding himself confined. Again. It must have been hugely frustrating.

He longed to visit the churches he knew and loved. When he couldn’t go himself, he could still write. Those letters must sometimes have felt a poor substitute for being there in person. Yet letters written in captivity became a treasured part of our New Testament: the prison epistles, traditionally associated with Rome—Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon.  Who would have thought?

Perhaps we should be slow to decide that a season of limitation is a season of wasted time. We may see only the closed door, the interrupted plans or the demands of another day. God may already be growing something we cannot yet recognise. Sharon, Brenda and Paul each found a way to respond where they were. May we too be open to what God can do through us today.

“Every experience God gives us” concluded Corrie ten Boom, “is the perfect preparation for the future that only he can see.” 

So let us sow faithfully where we are, trusting God to bring fruit beyond anything we can imagine or see.