All my gardening books said it was fine to plant spring peas in February. In fact, most of them said you need to. Seeing as I am beyond ready for summer and all the fresh vegetables it will bring, the chance to get something in the ground so early excited me. 

Peas are frost tolerant. The back of most pea seed packets say that you can plant them as soon as the soil is workable. By early February we hadn’t seen a lick of snow, so I went for it. 

Not inside, in the safety of starter pots, nestled under a grow light but out in the raised garden beds. 

The stuff I had started inside had all sprouted rather quickly. I ridiculously thought the peas would be the same. 

Every few days, after coming home from the store, I’d walk across the damp grass and peer down into the dirt, sure I’d see the signs of a pea shoot. 

After all, I had planted 50 seeds. Three different varieties. 

Surely, at least one would be vigorous and reach for the  grey northwest sky. 

A week went by.

Two. 

Three.

I started to get worried. 

Four.

I decided it was probably a loss and I’d have to replant them all.

Erik told me to wait. I thought he was a little crazy. The seed producers said germination should be in 7-21 days or thereabouts. We were well past that. 

I went over all the things I could have done wrong.

I’d planted before a big rain thinking that would help the seeds settle in. Maybe it had been too wet and they had rotted. I’d added some poultry manure to the beds. Maybe, somehow, I’d overfertilized and it had hampered germination. What would that mean for the rest of my season, I wondered. Or the compost I’d added. It had looked different this year. Maybe the peas didn’t like it. 

Surely there was a reason they hadn’t come up by the time they should have. And likley it was my fault. 

Right? 

RIGHT!

So of course, I made plans to re-seed the peas. 

Erik told me to wait. 

“Just give it some time,” he said. 

At almost 5 or more weeks past sowing, I figured these suckers were never coming up. A lost cause. What good would waiting do?  

I thought about getting my trowel and digging around to see if there were any signs of life. 

Anything to keep things on track! 

But we were heading out a town for a few days, so Erik encouraged me to leave them be until we got back. If they hadn’t sprouted by then, I could reseed. 

I wish I could say that I saw the wisdom in his encouragement to wait, but patience is one of the fruits of the spirit in my life that could use a gallon of fertilizer. 

I hate waiting.

I want to get things done. 

Move on.

Check it off the list. 

But I’m learning yet again (because apparently the lesson didn’t stick the first million and a half times it was presented to me), that there are a lot of things in life you just have to wait for.

You can’t force them, and if you do, you’ll either fall flat on your face, fail miserably, or push yourself so hard you’ll end up exhausted (and maybe in a hospital bed). 

So, reluctantly (and honestly because I ran out of time before our flight), I left the old peas in the ground, without digging them up to check. 

I was sure they had all rotted and died. Dissolved and disappeared like a mirage. 

You see where this is going, don’t you? 

When we got home from our trip, it was late. It had been dark for a few hours. Plus, I was tired and not in the mood to try to find a flashlight and go out to the garden. 

The next morning, I decided to peek. I figured I could replant later that day and hopefully be ok. Maybe I’d even buy a few pea starter plants to help me catch up. 

And low and behold, tiny and tender triangles of  green, had started pushing through the dark, rich compost. 

PEAS!

Were they way later than I expected? Yes. 

Were they way later than the packet had told me they’d be? Yes. 

But they needed their own timeline – not mine. 

So much of life is like those pea seeds. 

We want things to happen faster. 

We want results on our timeline.

Why? Because we want to be in control. 

To me the peas (finally) popping up are a reminder that if I just wait, beauty will emerge. Growth will come.  

Of course, this isn’t true for every single circumstance in life. There is an element of action to our time on earth, but I think more often than not, we could stand to wait a little longer.

Next time I’m worrying about something taking too long, or rushing to get things done, I’m praying I’ll be able to take a deep breath and just wait for God to work.