The Girl Behind the Garden Door 🌱
This morning, Amy Grant got me thinking about the little girl I used to be.
I listened to her talk about her traumatic brain injury, memory, healing, and learning to live again—and something in me recognized the conversation.
When I was three years old, my adopted mother and I were struck by a vehicle while crossing a busy street in front of a police station. I suffered head trauma, was dragged on my back, and my little left arm was pinned beneath the front wheel.
I don't remember the physical pain.
I remember the paramedic singing nursery rhymes with me to keep me awake:
“Peas porridge hot,
Peas porridge cold,
Peas porridge in the pot,
Nine days old!”
😂
That tiny memory is strangely precious to me.
There are other things I don't remember physically either, although I know difficult experiences can leave emotional and nervous-system imprints long after the details are gone.
And lately I've been wondering:
What if my work isn't to recover everything I've lost?
What if some of my work is to rediscover what was always there?
The little girl who wandered off into the middle of nowhere and climbed a mountain just because she could.
The girl who sang to the spirit of the ancestral hills.
Who picked wildflowers.
Who watched butterflies and pollywogs.
Who climbed onto the back of an old retired rodeo horse named Smokey.
Who could spend an afternoon simply being completely, unapologetically herself.
She didn't know what her “purpose” was.
She didn't need to.
She was busy living it.
And then there's The Secret Garden.
My favorite movie.
I've always looked at Sparrow Song Ranch through that same lens: a hidden garden full of possibility, waiting behind a locked door.
For years, I've felt like I've only been able to peek through the keyhole.
But lately...
I'm reaching for the key.
I'm beginning to understand that opening the door doesn't mean finding a perfect garden waiting on the other side.
It means clearing the overgrowth.
Sweat.
Tears.
Dirt under my fingernails.
Making choices.
Finding the path.
Turning left.
Turning right.
Sometimes backing up and trying another way.
And then, eventually, something begins to bloom.
Which brings me to one of my favorite places to shop for landscaping and food plants:
the Rescue section.
Yep. I'm that person.
I'll walk right past the perfect $30 plant and fall in love with the $5 one that looks like it has had a rough week. 😂
Because I see life in it.
Give it good soil.
Give it water.
Give it sunlight.
Give it some love.
And sometimes...
it comes back.
I think I've been learning to look at myself that way, too.
Not as something broken that needs fixing.
As something living that deserves tending.
And maybe that's why Beauty for Ashes has become such an important part of how I see life.
The ashes were real.
The hard things were real.
The losses were real.
But they don't get to decide what grows next.
So right now, I'm not demanding that I know my one grand purpose.
I'm asking to be divinely led toward the next place where I can be useful.
Maybe it's helping someone reach something on a grocery-store shelf.
Maybe it's caring for someone's beloved animal while they're away.
Maybe it's creating something that makes somebody smile.
Maybe it's rescuing a plant.
Maybe it's sitting quietly with myself and doing the inner work.
Maybe it's simply being present when someone needs a little kindness.
Perhaps purpose isn't always a destination.
Perhaps it's a way of moving through the world.
Notice what needs love.
Bring what light you can.
Tend what has been entrusted to you.
Follow the next open door.
And maybe Sparrow Song Ranch is part of that.
A physical garden.
A sanctuary.
A place for animals, creativity, nature, stewardship, imagination and connection.
But also...
an inner garden.
The place where I finally meet that little girl again.
Not to ask her what happened.
Not to make her explain herself.
Just to take her hand and say:
“I remember you.”
“Come on.
Let's go see what’s blooming.”
🌻
Maybe the garden was never really lost.
Maybe it was waiting for us to clear away the overgrowth.
And maybe the girl behind the garden door wasn't waiting to be rescued at all.
Maybe she was waiting for me to come home.
☕️🌱❤️
Sparrow Song Ranch — Beauty for Ashes. One rescued plant, one act of kindness, one little flower at a time.