The Ant and the Vine: Learning to Tend Without Clinging
I’m going to be brutally honest with you, a little open-kimono moment. Hunter and I are in a season of trying to conceive (TTC) for soul #2. Admittedly, I am someone who deeply reveres the body. I am fascinated by anatomy and physiology, and I have a deep appreciation for the biological symphony of fertility hormones. I’m also a data nerd, so naturally I’ve been tracking my cycles diligently.
Every basal body temperature. Every surge in E3G, PdG, and luteinizing hormone. Every little signal is well-tracked and (sometimes over)analyzed. And while this data is enlightening and informative, it can also quickly send me into a spiral. Every BBT becomes heavily scrutinized. Every hormone wave can become a golden calf of certainty.
And isn’t that exactly how golden calves are formed?
The golden calf of Exodus wasn’t born because Israel didn’t believe in God. It was born because they could not tolerate the uncertainty of waiting. They wanted something visible, measurable, controllable. And goodness, if that isn’t the temptation of the modern quantified self.
It’s the part of tracking your cycles that few warn you about: the torment of knowing just enough to believe you should be able to predict the mystery. So after a cycle with a very interesting biphasic luteinizing hormone pattern, I found myself obsessing over this departure from my expectation of a clean symphony of hormones. I could feel myself falling into despair simply because my biology deviated from the pattern I expected.
Not a categorically “bad” departure either.
Just one I didn’t anticipate.
In that spiral, I called out to my mom (and best friend- thank you, sister, for being such a safe place to land), and finally, to the Lord. I prayed for a word. Anything to pull me out of the cataclysmic torment of my overly analytical, left-brain dominant mind.
And did the Lord SPEAK…
As I sat on my front porch steps this morning, admiring the faithful work of the pollinators, I felt nudged to open my Bible and reflect on the scripture of the ant. Every summer morning, you’ll find me meditating on the movement of creation all around me. It’s a sacred little practice that Mabel and I have come to deeply enjoy: witnessing the toiling of the bees, the ants, the birds.
So I opened my Bible to Proverbs 6 to read the words I’ve written on the tablet of my heart, but on my way there, my eyes caught Proverbs 3:5–6, which younger April had fervently highlighted:
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him and He will make straight your paths.”
It echoed in my heart. “Lean not on your own understanding.”
I kept reading, and then verse 11 leapt off the page:
“My child, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom He loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.”
And if you know me, you know my left brain is always seeking the etymology of Scripture. So naturally, I did a deep dive on the word “reproof.” As you might guess, “reproof” in Proverbs is much warmer and more formative than the English word often feels. In our modern ears, reproof can sound like scolding, shame, or “you’re in trouble.” It’s lifelong work to deprogram our minds from the harsh, fear-based doctrines of modern Christianity. But the Hebrew carries the sense of loving correction that restores alignment.
The Hebrew behind reproof is תּוֹכַחַת (tôḵaḥaṯ / tokhachath), which carries a family of meanings: correction, reasoned argument, showing what is true, bringing something into the light, instruction through revealing error, and restoring what has gone off course. And that’s when the light bulb went off, as it so often does when I contemplate Scripture.
It was almost as if God Himself whispered:
“Beloved, look here. This pattern is not leading where you think it is. Come back to wisdom.”
And there Wisdom met me: Trust. Fear the Lord. And not fear as we’ve come to know it, but revere.
And if we do our little word play with “discipline” in verse 11, we find that the Hebrew (again) is so much more poetic. The Hebrew is מוּסָר (mûsār), meaning discipline, instruction, or training. It is the word used for the shaping of a student, a child, an apprentice. Molding the clay.
Not punishment for the sake of suffering.
Formation.
It calls to mind a vinedresser gently guiding a vine toward the trellis.
And that’s when it all locked in.
Imagining the Hand that Guides as a loving gardener nearly brought tears to my eyes. The One who sees His vines — reaching toward the light, stretching their tendrils outward— and gently unfurls them toward an unseen architecture that can sustain their growth. The vinedresser sees what the vine cannot.
And though we, like little ants, can prepare our bread in summer and gather our food in harvest, we cannot clutch.
We can steward.
We can tend the conditions.
We can honor the rhythms woven into the world.
But we cannot command the harvest. The gardener may prepare the soil, nourish the roots, and tend the vine, but the mystery of growth has always belonged to God.
As for me, I can test my LH, nourish my body, replenish my iron (yes, ferritin is tanking at the moment), observe cervical mucus, track temperatures, eat the lamb, and harvest the greens from the garden. That is the ant.
And then, when the day’s portion of work is complete, I open my hands. I release the outcome I cannot manufacture. That is the vine.
Much like the gardener does not grow the food, I do not manufacture life. I tend the conditions so the miracle of life can unfold.
The ant does not sit in the field saying, “God will bring my grain.”
The vine does not grip the trellis saying, “My strength will create the fruit.”
Biology is not a machine to master; it is a garden to tend.
Our Abba Father is merciful, and His ways are above our ways.
I trust.
I surrender.
He sees the trellis I cannot yet see.
May the miracle unfold in Your time, Father, and may I remember to revere the mystery of life itself.
In love + light,
April