6.14.2011

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.

6 comments:

  1. Wow this is a different Garden story!!! Love it, now you just need to go get them some nutrients...but who am I to talk you should come spend a day with me in my garden!!!

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  2. awe see what I mean...I am logged in but theres a bunch of letters...oh well its me Bonnie!!!

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  3. thats so strange, are you logged in on yahoo? try that

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  4. donbonorona@aol.comJune 14, 2011 at 5:11 PM

    I am logged on it says you are logged on

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  5. I hear you, Kristin. A little tending in your garden seems to right things a bit and before you know it you're at a different place in your life. I forgot where I was for awhile after my Mom passed and it's taken me some personal gardening to get back on track. Keep working it. It'll come into bloom once again...

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  6. this was absolutely beautiful Kristin..I feel like we have such a connection in the way the Lord speaks to both of us..He uses anything to speak to us & that's what I love about HIM...thanks for sharing..sometimes it feels like I'm the only one going thru stuff and it helps me so much to read your expressions of God's tender love & mercy... :)

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