What will be the harvest of your life?
The best place to seek God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.
~George Bernard Shaw~
What’s got my attention today? My garden.
It is one of my most favorite things. It is not a sweeping landscape or a professionally groomed masterpiece that could grace the pages of Home and Garden magazine. In fact, if you were to look out the back window right now, you would see that the hot summer sun of North Carolina has fried most of the lawn. Technically, if a botanist was to drop by for an assessment, the only greenery alive on the ground right now would be classified in the Crabgrass family. But still, it is our safe little place.
We have the yard itself, and a small vegetable garden that we throw seeds in each spring in the hopes of a bountiful crop. Our past adventures in “farming” have produced mixed results. We learned that peanuts will grow just fine in the red clay of the Carolinas, but no matter how we try, we simply cannot get them to taste as good as the ones purchased in the snack aisle at the grocery store. We learned that reading the labels on the young seedlings is a must unless you want to be surprised with the marijuana-shaped leaves of an Okra plant sprouting from the ground. We learned that birds will wait until your tomato is perfectly ripe and ready for picking, then will kindly peck a hole in the side of it ten minutes before you come out to grab it for your salad.
But, we’ve also learned that there is nothing on this earth that tastes as good as something that you, Mother Nature and God have grown together. We’ve learned that it’s okay to share with the birds, for the most part. I’ve learned that bugs, who have never been my favorite, are part of the mix if you want to work in the yard. And you need to learn to co-exist with them unless you want to grow vegetables that will have you glowing in the dark.
We’ve learned that gardening, and tending the soil is just like tending our own lives.
Build Your Resilient Purpose-Filled Life
Your garden is like life. It has a balance of things in there, some good, and some not so nice. But they balance each other. The good and the bad, they need each other. And the key to enjoying your garden or your life is living in the middle, not at either side of the spectrum. You have to balance the good and the bad too and see that each one has a place and a purpose.
Your garden shows you how to achieve your dreams. You plant the seeds at the beginning of the season, apply the necessary nutrients for growth. Then? You simply hope and believe it all works out, and the rest of the work is covered. You just know you will be picking tomatoes and peppers from those plants in no time right? You don’t over-analyze, you simply have faith. You go back each day to see little sprouts and then plants. Then, as if by magic, you walk by a plant and see it is weighed down with its harvest, waiting for you to take it. It’s like it magically appeared overnight.
Life is like gardening. You plant the seeds for the life you want. You give it the nutrients it needs to grow. You create a safe environment for your dreams to flourish, and periodically you weed away the outside influences that could choke it, and prevent it from thriving. You learn to make peace with and live with the things and people you can’t change. You adjust your direction and approach to deal with the storms of life.
You watch your dreams grow, but still, it seems like it is just never quite ready. Until one day, you look at your life, and you’ve done it. And, strangely enough, it feels like it appeared overnight. And, just like the pepper plant, all we really needed to do is have faith in the fact that we could make it happen.
Go plant some seeds for your life today.
I can see your green thumb from here,
Kelly
