Planted with Hope (25 page)

^*
Ruth Berolzheimer,
250 Ways to Serve Fresh Vegetables
(Culinary Arts Institute, 1940), 45.

Chapter Nineteen

God puts us on our backs at times so we may look up.

A
MISH
P
ROVERB

T
he fabric store was quiet as Hope entered. Joy had the day off, and Elizabeth was the only one behind the counter. She was looking through some swatches of blue, as if trying to find the perfect shade.

“There she is!” Elizabeth said as if she'd been waiting for her all day.

“Hello, Elizabeth.” Hope approached the counter with a smile. “It looks like you're busy with a project.”

The fabric store smelled of cinnamon from the candle Elizabeth had burning near the cash register. The large window in front welcomed in the Florida sun, which splashed across the neat bolts arranged by color along the aisles. Elizabeth sat behind the counter on a high stool with a back. On the wall behind her a beautiful antique quilt was displayed, in purples, pinks and dark grays. It reminded Hope of the quilt that used to be on her grandmother's bed, and she was thankful for the memory and thankful for the peace she felt in this shop.

“Busy? I don't believe in being busy at my age. Life is too
short not to enjoy each day. I have been messing with these colors though—just trying to find the right fabric to start piecing together a wedding quilt.”

“A wedding quilt.” Hope's eyes widened. “Do I know the happy couple?”

“Well, last I heard you share a room with Lovina.” She winked. “I know the wedding isn't published yet, but every time I see that couple I know that it won't be long now before we hear the
gut
news. I've seen many couples, and those two seem to complement each other so well.” She reached across the counter and patted Hope's hand. “But enough about that. Tell me why you've come.”

Hope took the older woman's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. Elizabeth's skin on the back of her hand was soft and thin like the breezy white cotton she sold.

“Oh, I'd like to order another gardening apron. Little Emma Sutter saw mine, and she just loved it. I think she'd be excited if I had one made for her.”

A smile filled Elizabeth's face, and the lines around the corners of her eyes stretched outward as her cheeks pushed up. “Oh, that would be a fun project to make. I just love when new friendships are made. That little girl looks up to you, you know. Every time I see her she has something to say about Hope or the garden. Is it going well with them? I hear Jonas is doing a fine job as our teacher.”

Is what going well?
she wanted to ask.
It's just a friendship.
But from the sparkle in Elizabeth's eyes she knew she'd never fool the woman.

“
Ja
, it is.” Hope's stomach tightened and she nearly held her breath as she thought of a way to cause the conversation to shift. “I enjoy… them. We enjoy being in the garden together.”

“And is the garden everything you'd hoped for?” Elizabeth asked.

“
Ja
, except… well, I'm getting a lot of visitors. Just this morning two Englisch ladies were at the pie shop and they got so excited when they heard there was an Amish garden out back. I was just leaving when they came back there and asked if they could take photos. I told them I didn't mind if they took photos of the garden, but I didn't want any of me.” She sighed. “Though I guarantee they did when they didn't think I was looking. I thought there were a lot of tourists in Walnut Creek, but I'm seeing them more and more around Pinecraft. Who thought being Amish would be so popular?”

Elizabeth nodded. “I think people are drawn to our simple ways. There is so much busyness and hurry in our world. The Englischers like to know that some people are making different choices.”

Hope snickered. “It's not so simple sometimes, being Amish. At least it hasn't felt that way lately. Sometimes I wonder if we're really that different at all.”

Elizabeth cocked an eyebrow. “What do you feel is most important about being Amish?”

Hope paused, having to think about it. This wasn't the question that she expected from Elizabeth, not today. “Being Amish is living plain. Not putting ourselves over others. It's living in humility and making one's family the center of your life. It's loving God, too, which I should have said first.”

“That's very good. And all those are important things. But there's something you forgot. Something important.”

“What's that?”

“Before I answer that I have to tell you a little story.” Elizabeth pushed aside the scraps of fabric, folded her hands, and leaned against the top of the counter. “Hope, there was a time when I questioned if I should remain Amish. After forty years of marriage
my husband died, and that whole time God never did bless us with children. It was just a few years after we moved to Pinecraft, so this didn't feel really much like home yet, and the home I had in Indiana was gone—sold to a young couple starting their lives.

“I didn't want to feel like an outsider, but I did. When I sat at sewing frolics everyone talked about their children and grandchildren. When I attended weddings I always found myself seated with other widows, but even they had family to talk about. At the same time, my shop started doing well, and I had a growing customer base, not only from the Amish, but the Englisch too. Women like Janet.”

Hope nodded, listening. She imagined if she spent more time with Janet she'd consider her a good friend too.

“She became a
gut
friend, and I knew she loved God. I believed that because of Jesus—what He'd done for both of us and our acceptance of salvation through Him—both Janet and I would go to heaven at the end of our lives. I've never been foolish enough to believe that only Amish did things the right way in God's eyes. Or believe that only Amish had any hope of heaven. So then I wondered,
Why remain?
If living plain didn't save my soul, then why do it?”

Elizabeth smiled. “I was being rebellious one quiet, Saturday evening, and I took off my
kapp
, just to see how it felt. And as I did I thought about the things Janet and I talked about most. The times in her life that she shared the most stories from—the war years. They should have been considered the hardest years of her life, but there was good mixed with the hardship and pain. And the person Janet admired most was the woman who'd faced very hard trials. Her mother, Pauline, was a widow. She had a child to raise on her own, and there was a war. She had to ration and raise her own food, but looking back it's a time that Janet never forgot.”

“Because of the garden?” Hope asked. Warmth filled Hope's chest, and she had a feeling that it was. She remembered again why gardening had become so important to her in the first place. It was a place of life, of growth, and connection with God. And she supposed all those things could be found in a garden even during a time of war.

Elizabeth didn't answer right away. Instead, she looked into Hope's eyes and offered the slightest smile, as if reading Hope's thoughts.

“No, it wasn't the garden that left such a strong impression,” Elizabeth said. She brushed a strand of white hair back from her forehead. It was light and wispy. Hope wondered if it felt like cotton. It sure looked as if it would.

“Not a garden,” Elizabeth said again. “A garden only grows for a season and fills our stomachs for a season too. The part that Janet will never forget is the people. Strangers who came together to make the garden grow and became friends.” Elizabeth's smile grew. “Those friendships lasted longer than one season. They lasted long after the war. Who the neighbors became
together
was the most important part. What they did together bonded them for a lifetime.”

Hope nodded, forcing a smile. She crossed her arms over her apron and wondered how long Elizabeth had been planning this talk. Did Lovina put her up to it?

Yet just because something was right for someone else didn't mean it was right for her. Still, she stood there and listened to Elizabeth. If it wasn't the message, it was the conviction in the woman's words that she'd pay attention to.

“Janet was telling me about her mother's garden during the time I considered leaving. It was so much easier just to be alone than to be around others and pretend I was happy for them every
time they announced a new wedding, a new grandchild, or a new marriage,” Elizabeth continued. “And then, that's when I felt my good God asking me to recite the Lord's Prayer.”

Tears filled Elizabeth's eyes and her lower lip quivered. Tenderness and vulnerability filled her face. Hope shifted on her feet. She wanted to look away, and as she glanced to the blue printed fabric on the bolt on the counter, Elizabeth's hand touched hers, pulling her back in.

Hope cautiously looked back to Elizabeth, focusing on her eyes, tears and all.

“Hope, will you say the first line of the Lord's Prayer with me—just the first line?”

Together their voices rang out in the quiet of the fabric shop. “Our Father who art in heaven.”

Hope's brow furrowed, and she wasn't sure what Elizabeth was getting at.

“Now, my sweet girl, will you just say the first word?”

The word replayed in her mind, and then, as if someone had opened a spigot, it dripped down into her heart. Heat filled her chest, and she tried to open her lips, but they felt dry and almost stuck together. Hope licked them with the tip of her tongue and she swallowed hard. “Our?”

“
Our
, yes, that is the word the Lord had for me. That was the reason He needed me to remain Amish. Many people today believe in God, but they think of it as a solo pursuit. They think of it as just between them and God. But Jesus reminds us of ‘our' in this model of how we pray. It's not just
my
God who art in heaven. It's
our
God, and it's a message that wearing this
kapp
displays, even when I'm not thinking about it. The
kapp
takes away my individuality, but for a good reason. It's a symbol to our world—to the customers who come into my shop—that living in unity and serving one another is important.

“Janet and I have talked about this and we agree that people are at their best for God when they are serving—not alone—but with others,” Elizabeth continued, emotion heavy on her lips. “God chose the nation of Israel. Jesus died for a sea of sinners. Most gardens don't just feed one, but many, and sometimes the hardest part of being Amish, opening ourselves to others—allowing them to press in and mess up our order and our plans—becomes the best thing. Not only for them. Not only for us. But for a whole world that needs to be reminded not to think of God as mine but ours. We, Hope, are a symbol of what happens when we all unite—together—in God's bigger plan for this world.”

Hope nodded, taking in Elizabeth's words. They spoke truth, but she also knew what it would require. If she followed this directive she'd have no quiet. She'd have no peace.

“All of that makes sense. You've given me something to think about, Elizabeth.”

“And pray about, I hope.”

“
Ja
, of course.”