The Broken Stem

Confession time: I’ve developed a slight obsession.

Okay… maybe more than slight.

It started innocent enough—two little vegetable plants on my 20-foot by 9-foot patio. Something small. Something “cute.” Something I could water in the morning and feel accomplished before the day got busy.

But then I bought one more.

And then one more.

And now I have what can only be described as a bucket garden that has taken over the patio like it pays rent.

Every time I go to the store, another plant seems to follow me home. Tomatoes. Cucumbers. Peppers. Herbs. If it can grow in a container, I’ve probably tried it. My husband has accepted that our patio no longer belongs to us.

It belongs to the vegetables.

I didn’t expect God to meet me out there between buckets and potting soil. I thought I was just growing food. I thought I was just trying to keep something alive.

But one morning, my hot pepper plant preached a whole sermon without saying a word.

That pepper plant had been confusing from the beginning.

It had some of the prettiest leaves in my entire garden; lush, healthy, deep evergreen. The kind of plant that makes you feel like you actually know what you’re doing. I fertilized it like I was supposed to. Watered it faithfully. Made sure it got sunshine every day.

From everything I could see, it had exactly what it needed to thrive.

Except… it was stingy.

Lots of beautiful leaves.

Not many peppers.

I’d walk past it and stare like, “So… are we producing today or are we just here to look pretty?”

Then one morning, I stepped outside and noticed something.

Not dramatic. Not obvious. Just a small shift that made me pause.

I leaned in.

One of the main stems had broken.

I still don’t know who did it.

Maybe it was the tropical storm that rolled through.

Maybe it was my husband.

The evidence is inconclusive.

But what got me was this: from a distance, you couldn’t even tell.

The plant still looked healthy. Still full. Still green. Still standing there like nothing happened. If you were just walking by, you’d never notice anything was wrong.

But up close?

The stem was split. Still attached. Still alive. But definitely broken.

I stood there longer than I meant to, just looking at it. I was trying to figure out how something could be both “okay” and not okay at the same time.

I started talking to God. “Lord… what am I supposed to do with this?”

And in that moment on my patio, it hit me how often life looks like that stem.

How often things can appear fine from a distance.

How often we can keep standing, keep showing up, keep smiling, keep functioning… while something important is split right down the middle.

I kept staring at the break, and another thought came: this didn’t happen because I neglected the plant.

It wasn’t thirsty.

It wasn’t lacking fertilizer.

It wasn’t deprived of sunshine.

Sometimes storms don’t come because you did something wrong.

Sometimes they come because storms come.

And still… the stem was connected. Still receiving nourishment. Still alive.

So I did what I could do.

I kept watering it.

Kept fertilizing it.

Kept checking on it like it was going to suddenly explain itself.

And then one day, I noticed something small.

Two tiny peppers formed where I didn’t expect one.

Not a dramatic harvest.

Just a quiet reminder that life can still grow in places that have been damaged.

That’s when the hit lesson me:

Broken isn’t the same as disconnected.

As long as that stem stays connected to the plant, there’s still life flowing through it. And as long as we stay connected to Christ, there’s still grace flowing through us too, still strength, still purpose, still fruit… even through the broken places.

Jesus said it like this:

“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit…” (John 15:5)

So I’m still expecting peppers from that plant.

Not because it isn’t broken.

It is.

Not because everything is perfect.

It isn’t.

I’m expecting a harvest because one broken stem doesn’t get to decide the ending of the whole story.

And if you’re reading this, feeling split in places you don’t talk about, still showing up, still standing, still smiling from a distance hear me:

Stay connected. Keep trusting. Keep growing. Keep expecting.

God has a way of bringing fruit from places everyone else thought were finished.