Let the Ground Rest

A Reflection on Love, Loss, Waiting, and the Harvest Yet to Come

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“So just let the ground rest
’Cause if it’s not right now
It’s for the best
You’re going to grow, I know this
But for now, just let the ground rest…”

These words have burrowed into my wife and me deeper than most songs written for hope, healing, or peace. “Let the Ground Rest” by Chris Renzema became a lifeline during a season when words were scarce and grief was overflowing. I share it because the lyrics are not only comforting, but offer a quiet invitation to those walking through transitions, loss, winter seasons, or the dark nights of the soul.

Earlier last week, I wrote about the importance of seasons in our lives and how we rarely understand the one we are in until much later. The harvest rarely resembles what we expected. Sometimes it comes in pieces, in subtle changes of heart, or in the slow reshaping of how we see the world. And often, the harvest reveals that what we thought we wanted was only a shadow of what we truly needed.

This song was our anthem when we lost our first son, Davian. Today, November 24th, is his birthday. It has been four years. Tears came early this morning, arriving as reliably as the ache that wakes with me on this date each year. Yet even in the sorrow, I felt a sense of calm—a peace in acknowledging what is, even while longing for what could have been.

When we lost Davian, we spiraled. We wrestled with God, with questions, with the kind of pain that makes breathing feel like work. One of the best depictions of that grief comes from a scene many know well: Cedric Diggory’s death in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. When his father drops to his knees and cries out, “That’s my son! That’s my boy!” the raw agony is unmistakable. Every time I see that scene now, I feel my stomach twist. That was the depth of my grief. That was the cry from my own soul when I realized my son would not come home with us.

Walking out of the hospital the next day only made the pain sharper. We were expected to join our family for Thanksgiving. Sitting at a table of gratitude only hours after holding my son for the last time felt like a cruel paradox. My wife should have been still pregnant, not recovering from labor. I should have been celebrating a future, not grieving what felt stolen.

Yet in that bitterness, we planted a seed of hope. We believed that someday we would again experience joy as parents here on earth. Four years ago, we placed that seed in the soil of grief and thought we would see the harvest in spring of 2024. Instead, we lost our second son, Jadon, in December of 2023. Different child, but heartbreakingly familiar pain.

But even then, something in us was growing. While we did not yet see it, our season of resting soil was preparing us for what would come next. We stopped forcing timelines, outcomes, and expectations. We let the seed grow at its own pace, on God’s calendar rather than ours.

The second verse of the song mirrored this period of waiting:

“You’ve been waiting on a moment,
Been waiting on a sign
Waiting for the lights to change
When you won’t feel so stuck or so left behind
Been waiting for the day to come
When you can leave behind what you’ve become
Wash it all-all away
These flowers only grow once they’ve tasted rain.”

In time, through tears and sacrifice and the long nights of waiting, we were blessed with the birth of our daughter in May of 2025. Her presence did not remove the pain, nor did her arrival unfold as cleanly or seamlessly as we imagined. But as we looked back over the previous four years, we saw the subtle transformation in ourselves—our faith, our perspective, our resilience, our tenderness. Blessings rarely come without shaping us first.

We long for our sons to be here with us. That ache never fades. Yet I also feel peace in imagining them on the other side, waiting patiently for us. As I reflect today on Davian’s birthday—and soon Jadon’s as well—I realize the harvest looks different than I once pictured.

Our daughter is the harvest of the first seed we planted: the desire to experience parenthood. But the losses planted another seed entirely. The belief that one day, we will be reunited with the children we never had the chance to raise here. That harvest is still ripening, and I hold onto it with steady hands.

Until then, I have another sacred task: being present. Being a loving husband and an intentional father in the season I am blessed to inhabit right now. While the seed of future reunion grows quietly beneath the surface, I continue to harvest gratitude from today.

So I rest. I let the ground rest. And as the song closes, I hold to these words, full of promise:

“’Cause He’ll finish what He starts
He started this I know
But if you saw the plans
Maybe you wouldn’t go
I watched Him plant a seed
And then let the ground rest
So child, oh, believe
’Cause I promise there’s a harvest…”

May we learn to trust the seasons we did not choose, knowing that even buried seeds are not forgotten. Even winter works in silence.

1. Photo credit of Chris Renzema’s album cover for “Let the Ground Rest” — https://genius.com/Chris-renzema-let-the-ground-rest-lyrics