I have been snapping and sighing up a storm this spring.
With each tree in bud, each flower in bloom delight has entered my heart. In an way I feel a bit parental, as each plant has a story, a beginning, significance.
There are the many perennials, tubers and bulbs that I have received from the sweetest three older women from our church. Each of their sharing of their beauty came with stories as well.
There are the living gifts I received in the form of a Magnolia, Red Maple and Japanese Maple from my kids and hubby. They all now sit were they began (most plantings in my garden don’t have the benefit of sitting in one spot, as I keep moving them around, never letting them become truly comfortable).
There are the boxwoods along the driveway, each one began as a hard cutting, pushed into the soil, and left on their own to do what they do best … grow. And now they are all one to two feet tall.
The trees and bushes that I transplanted from their original locations … the Oregon grape, rhododendrons and the forsythias that delight me each early spring.
There are the strawberries, thriving in my vegetable garden, the grapes that line the fence to the pool, the chives that have delighted baked potatoes for years.
Everywhere I look, there is an abundance of beauty for the eyes, the nose and even the taste.
This garden is lovely to spend time in, but it has also been my place of refuge and sanctuary. It is where, like the garden of Gethsemane for Jesus, I can pray without interruption, without ceasing.
It has been my place of worship, and thanksgiving, and praise. The flowers have been fertilized by my sweat and tears. There is even one, secret place, in my garden where I can go when “my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow” (Matthew 26:38).
But my present garden, my little piece of sanctuary, can go with me, can go with each of us, wherever we live, work, trod. For the refreshment from a garden, comes from the gardener of all gardens, and, as the Song of Solomon says,
“you are a garden spring, A well of living waters”
(4:15)
It is the Spirit of God, dwelling in us, that brings our refreshemnt, that brings refreshment to those we interact with, allowing us to have and to be the conduit for refreshment, for growth.
itsawonderfilledlife 