You will notice I did not title this “Lessons from Gardening”. Because what I do is not the art of gardening. What I view it as, is WORK. In the YARD. I used to enjoy the yardwork. I would take a few beers and go at it with my music blaring and bust it all out in a day, because, as in dental work, I just wanted to get it over with.
But, I have come away with some nuggets of thought. The mind is free to roam while mindlessly pulling weeds or pruning a plant. Mowing and weed whacking require more care, so the mind doesn’t wander as much as when I put my butt on the ground and pull the unwanted out of my landscape.
I have learned to always wear tight fitting shorts or underwear when I am working outside, because…well, bugs crawl.
Another lesson took place during in the mind numbing acts of beautifying my environment. It was learned by pruning. I have purple Salvia in my yard, which looks a lot like lavender. That plant is a ruthless self propagator and will take over if you let it. It makes for a beautiful display around Memorial weekend, if I have taken care to nip off the dead bits. But, when I do cut it, boy does it ever stink. The pruning is something I want to get over with as quickly as I can. Sometimes, in the late fall, I will just hit the whole plant with the lawnmower to save myself a tedious pruning job in the spring.
But, going from pruning Salvia to the lavender? From one stinky chore to a chore that doesn’t stink. As I snip the messy from the lavender, even the dead parts give off a beautiful aroma. So, when I am out there, in the middle of my 20 year old lavender plants, it smells amazing. But it only smells amazing if the plants are touched. Then it is time for it to do its thing, whether it be to calm, soothe or promise, it is a joy to deal with and I don’t mind at all.
So the lesson I have taken away from this bit of yardwork can be used to parallel the human condition. Do we not all suffer trials and tribulations? Yes. It is just part of living on this earth. Some years, months, weeks, days, hours or minutes may be seriously terrible to tough out and we have a hard time believing we will ever come through it. But somehow, we do. But it is the getting through that shows the rest of the world our true character, and our capacity to put our feet to the proving ground and soldier on with a steadfast heart and the trust that we will be victorious in the end. Being a victor can look many different ways. But, God wins in the end. You know that, right? He didn’t put us all on this earth to run around willy-nilly and be chaos. There is order to His creation and we see it everyday. We see it in the birds of the sky who know just what to eat or where to make their nest for the maximum effect of their purpose.
So, when we are fighting what seem like never-ending battles with the seen or unseen, we get to choose. Choose our response to the hard. Choose our reaction to the difficult or insane. Trust me, if you ARE trusting God, then what you see is not an illusion. God sees the insanity as well, but He wins. In the end. Whenever that is. We are here now.
As we are pruned and clipped, manipulated and magnified, our reaction to the cutting away will mean pain. It will mean parts of who we thought we were will disappear into the burn pile. But what comes back in its place will be even more glorious that what used to be growing there.
The scent we give off as we grow in this life, the essence of who we are and how we handle trials can either stink to high heaven, like the Salvia in my yard. Or, we can see that the burning and clipping of who we identified as can smell just as sweet as the lavender, and make us a positive influence to those who surround us in our garden.
He has made everything beautiful in its time; He has also planted eternity in men’s heart and mind (a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages, which nothing under the sun except God can satisfy) yet so that man cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I know there is nothing better for them than to be glad and get and do good as long as they live. Ecclesiastes 3:11-12
So, apparently we are beautiful. Here. Now. Our time. Beautiful inside…because only man looks on the outside and judges the other based on something so temporal as this old wrinkly, stinky body. Newsflash: It is just a place holder for who we truly are. We are a living spirit housed in a shack of epidermis. We ARE MORE than meets the eye. We are everything to our Creator.
As parents, we can relate. God created the family unit so we would have something to compare to how He feels about us. Remember when your child made you oh-so-proud? Wow. That is an amazing feeling. You nudge your spouse and say “look what we made!”. Or there are those moments when you say “Look what YOUR kid did! Ugh. Little jerk!” Yeah, when your kid is good, it is easy to watch. But when they are bad…well, they must belong to someone else.
How do we think our Creator thinks of us? Does He really love us any less because we are so human? Does a parent love a child less because they stumble in this journey called life? I don't know about you, but I am really thankful my parents didn’t throw this baby out with the bathwater. They probably could have done it everyday, but instead they chose love. Unconditional love.
God keeps giving us chances. Someday, it might be one last chance. You just never know.
You and I think alike. Don't you wish you'd had this wisdom from your 20s on? But I guess all of our past made us who we are today. Have a great weekend!
There are so many life lessons in the yard. I actually enjoy getting out in the Spring and seeing the new life, it's a reminder to slow down and marvel at God's creation.
Funny our pastor's sermon last weekend was around 'pruning' as well. It's necessary for new growth - but not always something we seek out, as it is pain in the short term. Think we have all seen a lot of pruning these last 4 years.