Gardening

I love gardening. My mom gardens, my grandparents had HUGE gardens, my dad gardened. When I was really little I can remember all of us gardening together. So, for me it is more than just the production, it takes me back and I can remember some of the better and pleasant times spent with family. It has always been a pleasure to me. Until this year...

The last couple of years gardening didn't go the best for me. I didn't get to be out as much as I had hoped because of recovering from health complications following emergency surgery and severe blood loss, but that is another story. Regardless, I just couldn't handle the heat and didn't have the energy. This year I was all ready to go and looking forward to once again having a bountiful harvest. And then it happened...

I am being taught a lesson. I am still in the learning process, and, the way I see it, it is an ever going process. For me now, it is a hard one learned. I am learning a lesson about pests. The ones that creep into your garden and are unseen or unnoticed for a while, then you begin to see them, a few at a time, but there are so many other things that need done that you turn a blind eye, you'll get to it later. Then you go back. And it is overwhelming. So, you get discouraged and think it is no use and walk away. Again. The next time you come back with a resolve that you will get this under control and you make headway, smash the potato bugs (my apologies to the weak stomachs out there!) and pull the weeds, gaining ground and you are glad you worked at it. Maybe it won't be a total loss after all. You get busy again and it is a couple of days. Then it rains. When you get back out there a new growth of weeds has begun and the old ones are bigger than ever. Sigh, here we go again!! In all of this I am still thinking that the plants will grow anyway and do just fine. Wrong. Lack of timely water, too many insects, too many weeds and my garden is doing terribly. The bountiful harvest I had hoped for is going to be measly at best. To top it off the chickens and guineas have decided that is their favorite feasting sight and make a meal of the few bits of produce out there. Sigh.

Now, why would I take time to write about my failed garden? Who cares right? Not the end of the world, certainly and most assuredly not something that should be the priority in my life! Back to the lesson. Sigh again. Boy, some lessons are hard! Those pests...the weeds, the bugs, the chickens. Those represent the things in my life that keep it from being the garden that God wants it to be. My home should be a garden. Where my children can grow unhindered, to accomplish the things that God has set before them. My spiritual life should be the garden that God grows me in to accomplish what He has set before me and to nurture those in my care. So, I started out doing alright. I watered, (think bible study and quiet time), I pulled the weeds (think keeping out unhealthy influences), I kept the bugs at bay (think staying aware of strongholds, nipping sin in the bud when it rears it's ugly head), the chickens were kept in their own area (good things that are prioritized correctly), I had plenty of sunshine (time in the word and prayer and a positive outlook) and my garden flourished. YAY!!

Now I look at it and I finally see why the discontent has crept in. The weeds are ignored, the bugs wait, it doesn't rain and instead of keeping the chickens fenced, they run at will. Let me do a little bit better break down. There are those little areas of sin we don't acknowledge, then we justify it because we compare our own behavior with that of someone near to us, then it is just too difficult to overcome. Where we had done so well at prioritizing those good things and people, we are now putting too much time into one thing or doing too many things and letting it eat away at the real harvest to take place (the chickens!). We let attitudes creep in that are inappropriate and they eat away at the good things around us and the surrounding growth in our gardens. I justify yelling at the kids because, really, you would think after hearing the same thing this many times they would have it figured out, right?! I let a critical attitude go, because, what is the wrong in picking out the bad and wanting it to disappear...even if it isn't my own shortcomings...I let priorities fall by the wayside and give time to things that are meaningless, chasing the wind, instead of the things that matter For The Kingdom. Those bugs creep in and affect all of the plants. My husband, my kids, all of those closest to me. That has been the biggest and hardest part of the lesson. Have you ever seen a good field planted next to a field that has been neglected? After a year or two the thistles, quackgrasses, and other bad weeds spread from one to another, even at the best efforts of the one to keep them out of the well managed field. That is what I do to those closest to me when I fail to tend my own garden. The attitudes, sins, and mishandled priorities spill into those lives and influence them for the worst. I have seen it. I pick it up in the way my children interact with one another, the way my husband interacts with the kids, the way we all treat those around us. It shames me, and it scares me. I can acknowledge it in my own life, but what if they don't see it and take care of it in theirs? What if they become strongholds that they forever struggle with. I look for a hand to help. Someone who has more experience with this type of thing than me. My garden needs the proper care, more time spent tending and it needs the Master Gardener. Who better to show me the best ways to tend and care for my garden? With these things I can have Faith that, in time, it will flourish once again and produce an abundant harvest. It won't be easy, but nobody ever said it would be.