Skip to main content

There's Always Something


 I decided to start my gardening early, before the sun would find its way into our front yard atrium.  I started trimming the jasmine and alyssum that seem to think they are the only plants that matter.  I am sure that they feel they are justified in spreading beyond their borders.  The Bird of Paradise, now over 25 years plus old also sprawls across its center spot.  Its large leaves attempt to curtail the jasmine growth, but the jasmine just kindly winds itself around the leaves and doesn't particularly feel bothered by them.  The ferns have continued to show resilience and repeated growth, and yet when I rearrange them, I see a spot of dryness that they cleverly hid.  The roses too required pruning, and defend their growth by poking me with their thorns.  I try to be careful as I work because I actually have the privilege of hosting a morning Dove mother and her nest.  She took up residence in the center of my hanging plants, just after I had redone them with small fuschia flowers.  


There's always something that shows up as a surprise in my garden.  Sometimes it's perfectly round chomps cut out of my rose leaves by grasshoppers.  Sometimes it's a party of lady bugs, sometimes it's been a hummingbird that has made a nest in my jasmine vine.  But this time, it's this Mother Dove.  I have watched her every day, and am amazed at her patience and endurance.  She has continued to sit on her nest of 2 eggs 24/7.  I am not even sure how or when she eats or even gets a drink of water.  She's quiet, and seems to tolerate my chatty conversation with her whenever I greet her.  She never flies away abruptly, and throughout all my trimming and cutting of my out of control and unruly garden, she stayed put and didn't even flutter her wings.  

I don't think I could be so patient.  And obviously, she is very trusting, in that I think she had surveyed that particular spot for awhile, as I had viewed the doves often in our front yard or atrium.  Ideally, I wished she wouldn't have plopped down in my newly done basket of plants, but at this point I am willing to let it be until she has her baby birdies.  Yes, there's always something . . . but what does that matter? What are the lessons that the garden is showing me?


Perhaps, it's a reminder that growth happens even in spite of what I do or not .  It's God who causes the growth.  Yes, I can water, feed, trim and prune, but I cannot cause one iota of growth.  I need to be thankful for the growth, the beauty of each plant that seeks to display itself.  I am to realize that each one shares in the making the atrium a beautiful and peaceful place, especially throughout the seasons of the year.  Each one has the timing of their bloom.  I need to pause and be grateful that I have this special spot to sit and breathe, enjoying the summer breeze and scents, where I know that I'll find there's always something . . .


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

But . . .

  I had to pause for a moment, as I began reading the text this early morning.  But they, our fathers, acted arrogantly:  they became stubborn and would not listen to Thy commandments."  (Nehemiah 9:18).    How often do I find myself verbalizing "but? what about? what then? what if? really?" All the phrases that feed doubt and angst into my life are found in that one conjunction.  Memory stands as the faithful argument against it, but when faced with future days all seems easily forgotten.  This verse comes to a people who had returned to their homeland after being ravaged and exiled by foreign powers.  Nehemiah is reminding them of who they are, and especially of their one and only God who has forever been faithful to them despite  their faithlessness and wrongdoing.  He reminds them how God is a God of forgiveness, slow to anger, longsuffering, overflowing with lovingkindness, never forsaking them even when He was totally forgott...
Post a Comment
Read more

Summer Breeze

  Gypsy Rose immediately prances to the back door as she hears her name.  We are ready for our morning walk, which has started later than usual, since I have some of these summer days off.  But it is still early enough to catch the morning breeze.  Walking south, I am refreshed by feeling the gentle wind all around me, it's a cool wrap in contrast to the summer sun.  But it all seems to disappear as I turn the corner and head west, my summer breeze is gone.  I am at a loss for it even as I continue north and east.  It's only as I begin the southern sidewalks back home that I am met with the blissful breeze.  I realize that though I wasn't feeling it for most of my steps, it was there all along, I just had to turn the right direction to get relief . . .  Sometimes, that is how my relationship with God seems.  Yes, I know He is ever near and is with me, but I don't feel that fact.  Sometimes my prayers seem to be in a vacuum, and I'm ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Brief Moments of Grace

  "But now for a brief moment grace has been shown from the Lord our God, to leave us an escaped remnant and to give us a peg in His holy place,  that our God may enlighten our eyes and grant us a  little reviving in our bondage." (Ezra 9:8)   Summer welcomes me today with a cloudy cool morning and a subtle fresh breeze.  The day is probably teasing me with moderate temperatures before it will launch into more robust sunlight and heat.  The scorching temperatures have given an abundance of tomatoes, bush beans and yellow squash in my garden, while tormenting the kale, cilantro, spinach and herbs.  My refreshment is found swimming laps in the pool and teaching or rather reminding Gypsy Rose to stay in her lane while we swim together.  Days seem to run together, slip away too fast, as I often feel locked in a routine of sleep, work, cook, repeat. I know that I need to pause and reflect, because even in that daily ritual are God's brief moments of gr...
Post a Comment
Read more