The Garden in the Parking Lot

A congregation in Memphis decided to observe a week-long fast during Lent. They posted about it on social media, shared recipes for bone broth, and held nightly prayer meetings. On the third evening, a deacon named Marcus drove past the church on his way to the prayer service and noticed something. The nearest grocery store, a small Save-A-Lot, had closed permanently. A handwritten sign on the door read, "Thank you for 14 years."

Marcus stood at the prayer meeting that night and said something uncomfortable. "We are choosing not to eat this week. Half the families on Tillman Street cannot find fresh produce within three miles. Maybe God is less interested in our empty stomachs and more interested in theirs."

The fast did not end. But it changed. The congregation voted to tear up a section of their parking lot and build raised beds. Within a year, that garden produced over two thousand pounds of collard greens, tomatoes, okra, and sweet potatoes, all given away free to the neighborhood.

Isaiah 58 says the fast the Almighty chooses is to share your food with the hungry and provide the wanderer with shelter. The prophet promises that when God's people stop performing righteousness and start practicing it, "your light will break forth like the dawn." In Memphis, that light broke through concrete and asphalt, one raised bed at a time.