The Gardener Who Would Not Give Up

For seventeen years, Monica of Thagaste refused to stop digging around the roots of her wayward son. Augustine — brilliant, restless, entangled in hedonism and false philosophies — showed no fruit that matched his potential. His mother wept so persistently that a bishop once told her, "It is not possible that the son of so many tears should perish." Monica was doing the work of the gardener in Luke 13.…