Gardening

Bethany and I have transformed our little dead garden into a beautiful array of colours, stems, and sweet smelling petals.

But in the middle of the garden was a bush that had not yet sprouted any green leaves or flowers. It look dead. It was dry, brown and quite ugly against our fresh little flowers that we had planted around it. I looked at it and was then determined to pull it out since it didn't appear to be living, and since it made the garden look so ugly.

However, we decided to give it another week or two just in case it was still alive. Sure enough, several weeks later tiny little green leaves are beginning to peek out of the brown stems. This reminds me of life.

When we view our lives and look at the pain that we see in them we begin to feel disheartened. We don't want pain to be in our lives because it looks so ugly against the bright colourful cheerful things. We have a choice to either pull the pain up and pretend it never existed, or let it sit there a while.

If we choose the latter option, we will find that it will teach us things about ourselves and who we are. And if we wait long enough we will soon find little green fresh living things sprouting from the dead bush...give it time; eventually it will blossom and the garden will be fuller because of it. And I really do believe that our lives will be fuller when we allow ourselves to feel pain and let it sit with us a while, trusting that God will eventually bring beauty even into the darkness of our lives.

may my heart always be open to little... (19) by E. E. Cummings

may my heart always be open to
littlebirds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile