Who's tending your garden...?

Okay Okay, I have been wallowing around in this weird funky mess of a pity party for awhile…its like I come out and go back in, come out and go back in…and personally I feel exhausted from it. This weekend seemed to top it off as some things happened that brought up a lot of old feelings and emotions…ones I had thought were long gone. So this morning as I arose I knew that I had to do something different today. I had to get into my spiritual garden and find out where the path out of this weedy place was.  The emotions that have been coming up for me have been fear, loneliness, denial, complacency, insecurity and maybe even a little hopelessness. Now anyone who really knows me, knows that these are areas of my life that seem to cause struggles every now and again, but this time, it felt like a wave rolling over my mind and my heart…like a bank of fog coming in and causing my vision to get distorted and like I couldn't see an arms length in front of me. It was blinding.

So this morning I went out to water the lawn. It keeps looking like its dying, and we water it almost  everyday. As I am out there and I start looking at the garden and feeling frustrated because there are things going on with my plants that I am not happy with. My garden doesn't look healthy. It looks overgrown, half-done and lacking in nutrients. It looks like I am just allowing it to get by.  No TLC in awhile….haha. Oh I love how God uses the garden with me.  So I started by trimming some  dead leaves and flowers off the rose bushes. Then I went to my pretty potted plants I had planted in early spring. The geranium leaves were looking yellow and the wilted. I realized that I had been allowing them to sit on the porch, but that they were starting to form a kind of root rot from not getting enough direct sunlight and air. So I moved all my big planters off my porch and into direct light. Its amazing how that happens to us …we think we are in the right spot, but we are actually temporarily planted. In a pot our roots can only grow so deep. We need to be planted in the ground. I need to find the right ground for me to plant my self, because the roots of my life are starting to rot.  A transitional life gets old and stagnant after awhile.

As I walked to the front of the house I realized that the ferns I had growing in the front of the house were really starting to look big and overtaking, so I thought I would trim them back a bit. The more I trimmed the more I saw that the other plants next to them, which are my favorites, Hydrangeas, were being forced to grow sideways because of the big leaves of the fern. The fern which is beautiful and lush to the eye was literally choking out the more delicate flowers that I longed to see. Such is my  life….The things that seem like the biggest blessing and the most important to deal with have become over powering and consuming. I have allowed them to choke out the lovely and beautiful moments of refreshing and laughter, that grow so easily in my garden. But see it was an easy fix, just not one that anyone else had noticed or thought really mattered. You can't expect someone else to know your garden the way that you do…Its YOUR garden. Its where the things of life are planted and sometimes you gotta get in there and cut back the big leaves in order to find the treasures hidden way beneath.  Some might think my garden looks a little bare now, but I have been through this enough times to know that those fern leaves grow back really quickly. I just have to tend to my garden diligently.

I have found the Lord so faithful to speak to my heart as I go through things in life. If I stop and listen. He will use the garden, the computer, the relationships, the ocean, my children…its endless, but He will literally use whatever I put my hands to, and He will show me what the issue is and how to give it to Him. Today He used my garden to realign me and help me realize that the things that seem huge always have a way of working themselves out.  Whats most important is those soft moments, those ones where you stop and just allow Gods peace to surround you.  I was blessed after my garden class with Him to get a phone call from a dear friend, and I was able to share my heart openly with her and it really helped me get my mind and heart back in balance. It turned out to be a great day and fresh start!  God wants me to lean on Him, trust Him and be happy and free to be me! Ferns are beautiful, strong and tenacious….but so am I.

Why fly alone...

Some of us are loners, people who have been accustomed to doing life with or with out people. Loners by choice. We have gone through experiences that have made it hard for us to trust others. We meet new people and sometimes feel that tug from God on the inside to reach out, or the feeling that maybe, just maybe, you might be able to have a wonderful friendship with someone, but when it comes time to get together, or make a phone call and reach out…..you stop. You go into protection mode. You become self enthralled….you start making excuses, or reasons that sound pretty darn valid, even to you. Why do we do that?? How is that benefiting our lives? Who are we protecting and from what? 

As I was walking today…(yes, I have started walking…and it feels great!) I kept seeing all these Pelicans flying by. I am not a "bird" person, in fact I can't stand birds, but pelicans are amazing to me. i love to watch them soar and glide through the sky. They seem to grip the air around the cliffs and the water, just skimming the waves. They hug the curves of the cliffs as if by instinct. They seem so big and majestic yet fly through the air with ease. What amazes me most about them is the way they fly in a formation. There is a leader of the V shape that they form and they glide and fly so amazingly in line. Why do they do this? Well, thats what my mind kept wondering this morning, so I investigated why…the reason is because when they fly in formation the wind is already broken by the bird in front of them. This is what I read :

Our results provide empirical evidence that, compared with solo flight, formation flight allows birds to reduce their energy expenditure while flying at a similar speed.

"In birds flying in formation each wing moves in an upwash field that is generated by the wings of the other birds in the formation."

Even when pelicans struggled to fly in a pattern, the benefits still outweighed the disadvantages.

Oh my gosh! Can you believe that….God was giving me a visual illustration of why we need to allow people into our lives. We need to trust again that those who lead us aren't necessarily going to go off course, but that they will break the wind, they will soar to new heights, and if we are in formation, we will go right along. Pelicans can go a much farther distance in a group, than by themselves, because they expend much less energy.  

As I watched this flock fly past me today, I noticed a few stragglers, coming up on the rear. There is an area along the coast that is a cove and it gets really windy there. It looks like the birds use it to play in, they soar and dive in the wind. Well one of the stragglers didn't keep up with the group of birds and she started playing in the wind, all by herself. I watched and I laughed out loud. This bird looked like it was having so much fun! But I realized, that this is how I am at times. I will separate from the flock and the power of the group to soar on my own and play the way I want to.  I will get caught up in the moment and lose focus on what my goals are and how to accomplish them, within the power of the flock. On our own, we may have fun, we may soar and dive and use the winds of life that turn us and twist us…but if we would just stay with the flock, we wouldn't have to work so hard, we could use the aerodynamics of the group to soar.

We all need each other in this life, and I don't mean that you need EVERYONE to be your "best buddy". But when God impresses on your heart to reach out and get involved in something or make some new friends that have similar interests as you, or you feel a completely divine connection, don't let it pass you by. It can be hard to fall into the rhythm of the wind with that flock again.

Love you all, thanks for letting me share, yet again another piece of my journey :)

Kristin