Love, Time, and a Muscadine Vine

Twelve years ago, I stood barefoot in the mud beside my dad as a gentle fall rain began to fall. The ground was cool and soft beneath my feet … the kind of damp that carries the scent of leaves, earth, and endings about to become beginnings.

We were planting two muscadine shoots in my yard. No more than twig-like stems, really. Spindly, small, and unimpressive to anyone but us. But we believed in them.

The feel of Georgia clay between my toes and the sound of rain tapping the earth is etched in my memory, as is the way my dad and I worked quietly … no big declarations, just love in action. It wasn’t just about planting vines. It was about rooting something for the future, something that would grow alongside the life I was just beginning … and a legacy for when he was gone.

Because that same fall, I met Jim.

And though neither of us could’ve predicted the chapters to come, we knew … deep down … that something had taken root. Our love didn’t begin with fireworks or fanfare. It began with steady presence. Just like the roots of the muscadine vine.

We were two people who had lived enough life to value the quiet miracle of being seen and chosen.

Ours was a slow unfolding. Trust was built step by step, word by word, like branches reaching toward sunlight. We were starting a life in the wake of grief and growth, carrying past stories but daring to imagine new ones. Just like those vines, we were finding our footing … growing toward something lasting.

“We were two people who had lived enough life to value the quiet miracle of being seen and chosen.”

Year after year, the muscadine vines stretched across their trellis … green, alive, but never bearing fruit. Still, I kept watering them … kept believing in their quiet promise.

Life, too, was unfolding … sometimes gently, sometimes in ways that rattled us. But we kept going … kept tending … kept choosing each other.

This year, something changed.

For the first time, the vines are bearing fruit.

Twelve years.

The same number of years Jim and I have been writing our shared story.
The same number of years since we chose each other—deliberately, wholeheartedly.
The same number of years I've spent leaning into love, creativity, grief, and grace.

It’s not just fruit. It’s a marker of time. A reminder that slow growth is still growth. That what’s planted in love … even when it looks like nothing is happening … is quietly preparing to bloom.

Because the truth is … growth takes time, and so does maturity.

It takes years of deep roots, of weathering storms, of showing up when it’s hard, of learning when to stretch and when to rest. It’s that steady faithfulness that finally makes the vine strong enough, mature enough, to produce fruit.

And as I stood beside the vine this year, seeing it finally bear fruit, I couldn’t help but think of the words from John 15:5:

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”
John 15:5 (NKJV)

This muscadine vine is more than a plant.
It’s a living timeline.
A witness to devotion, resilience, the quiet wisdom of waiting …
and a reminder of what becomes possible when we remain connected to love, to time, and to the true Vine.

And this?
This is the sweetness of love, time, maturity, and a muscadine vine.

Quote to Carry

“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thought to Carry

What have you planted—physically, emotionally, or spiritually … that has taken its time to bloom?
What quiet promise are you still tending, even if it hasn’t yet borne fruit?

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