Worn Around the Edges

Lessons from My Garden - Part 3

We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring. This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering—II Thessalonians 1:3-5


Into each life some rain must fall.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, "The Rainy Day"

These plants were beautiful, standing tall and green full of life and beauty. Slowly the sun began to shine brighter, the air which was cool and refreshing became hot, lasting longer day by day. In addition, to the summer months pressing on, moths and insects now made their homes in the cool dirt and the leaves became full of holes, green turning to yellow. In essence, the beauty began to flee and the leaves began to look worn and tired from the weather and outside circumstances. 

So many of us are like the leaves. We start out fresh and renewed until our schedules overtake our peace and quiet, kids get sick, stress and worries keep us up late at night and we can't find rest. We find ourselves stretched so thin that we long for a more simple, less complicated life. Why do hardships of life come? It says in the quote above that rain falls in all of our lives. There are seasons of life where rain falls more than for others. And for some who are blessed enough to escape the storms of life, there time is yet to come. 

In the above passage it says that afflictions and hardships bring out the best and worst in us, preparing us to be worthy of the Kingdom. We spend a lifetime, preparing for eternity. Most of us need many years to refine us to be more like Him.

It is quite normal to us to have holes and yellow leaves, some from our own mistakes and failures, others are just allowed to refine us. So how do we find rest as we feel weary and tired?

Matthew 11 says it best, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (verses 28-31)

Missed Moments

Lessons from My Garden - Part 2







"You and I can never do a kindness too soon, for we never know how soon it will be too late."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise. Making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Ephesians 5:15-16

In the picture above these morning glories were planted in the spring from seed. The plants grew very full, lush and green. I waited for months, watching in great participation of multiple flowers filling each of my pots on my patio. I waited and waited; day after day, week after week. Finally, one day as I was carefully watering I couldn't believe it, I had missed the buds coming on. I loved the brilliant color. There was only one from all the plants that so fully filled the dirt. I came back in the afternoon and the flower was gone. Only several hours had passed by. It was several more days before I happened to notice another. If I wasn't looking for them, they would come and go before I could enjoy their beauty.

I find that life is like that. How many times are we in a hurry and their is a sales person that just wants someone to listen yet, we are in a rush to go through the line. Or there is an eldely person that comes into my path and they just want a touch, as I see a lonliness in their eyes. Maybe they have recently lost their love and are grieving their lifetime of memories. How many times do we make a to do list for the day and our children just want us to stop and play a game. Life is full of many opportunities to show loving kindness, a gentle touch or a wordless smile. Out of our own ignorance, we miss the divine appointment, only to realize later that the moment is gone, never to return. Just as their is beauty in a single morning glory bloom, how greater the beauty in receiving a blessing from an unexpected opportunity to touch the life of another!

Growth Takes Time

What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others-ignoring God, harvests a crop of weeds. But the one who plants in response to God, letting God's Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life. Galatians 6:7-8

Lessons from My Garden - Part 1

This spring I was tired of spending so much money planting flowers three times a year. I have two large beds in the backyard and about 7 pots on the front and back patio. While I absolutely love the beauty in seeing my yard filled with flowers of many kinds and colors, they simply don't last! I got this great idea to grow things from seed. I know I've lived in the city far too long. My Indiana, Ohio and Michigan friends are just laughing to themselves. Only my family knows that I don't have an indoor green thumb. Many flowering plants have been sent our way through the years and only one has survived, Great Grandma's cactus that was 70 years old at the time she gave it to me. I was 12. It has never flowered but I have somehow managed to keep it alive after 23 years of being happily married.

My outdoor flowers have had the same kind of fate. So back from the bunny trail, I bought three packages of seeds. I didn't think it would take over 6 weeks to become plants just breaking through soil and many more weeks after that to flower. Yes, I guess you could say I am a little impatient.

I think our spiritual growth is the same. Someone planted seeds in our life to bring us to Jesus. Some of us take longer than others to accept Christ. For some of my friends, I have prayed for their salvation for more than 15 years. You continue to perservere even without acceptance. At some point, someone comes along and leads that person to Jesus. Some people remain in an infant stage in their relationship with Christ for a long time because there is no one to teach them how to grow. For others, life circumstances become hard and they ask a lot of questions.

We all grow in our spiritual journey at different paces. Sometimes we grow impatient with our own progress as well as the progress with those around us. The best part is that God is so patient. He gently and quietly pursues us because He desires to have a relationship with us. Whether it takes us two months, two years, 20 years He still loves us and is waiting. It doesn't matter what our growth rate is or that it can't be measured, what counts is that we continue to seek Christ! When we earnest seek Him, he promises that we will find Him. Growth will automatically take place!

Tick Tock

“In the West we have a tendency to be profit-oriented, where everything is measured according to the results and we get caught up in being more and more active to generate results. In the East -- especially in India -- I find that people are more content to just be, to just sit around under a banyan tree for half a day chatting to each other. We Westerners would probably call that wasting time. But there is value to it. Being with someone, listening wihtout a clock and without anticipation of results, teaches us about love. The success of love is in the loving -- it is not in the result of loving. ” 
― Mother Teresa

Looking through the pictures of summer, I see a person I do not recognize. It is true. I have always heard it said that in your mind you believe you are younger than your body says. It is a sad state of affairs when you are walking into a ball game and an overweight, bald headed, middle-aged man is trying to flirt with you. The only thought that might be grimmer is that he might even be younger than me. The pictures do not lie. I am not as young as I used to be. It is a stark reality that I am slowly approaching mid-life.

Some of my counter parts pay to have time erased from their deteriorating bodies; face lifts, body reductions, enhancements. It becomes more difficult to lose a pound, energy wanes and injuries happen as we try to overcompensate and work out more. However short-lived the solutions may be, it only postpones the inevitable. Time is truly not our friend! Even more difficult to watch is our aging parents, our dying grandparents and friends who are facing serious physical ailments and sicknesses. This was all promised from the very beginning; we would be born, our days would be numbered and we would return as dust. All of this is the result from Adam and Eve's choice to rebel against God's only rule.

I think Mother Teresa has a point. Our daily life and routines are so rushed and time passes by so quickly, that we forget to sit under the tree, in the park, on the back porch, just chatting; with our parents, our spouses, and our children who are growing up so quickly right before our very eyes. We go from 20 somethings who will conquer the world, to parents who are waving our goodbyes and eagerly waiting for their return on holidays.

Change is inevitable! We can't stop our children from leaving the nest, or from our bodies aging. It is all going to happen! Our response to the changes in life are within our control. Acceptance of change is hard! I find myself reflecting on the past more and more. I am thankful for past relationships, loved ones lost, mistakes made. They all make up the tapestry of my life. I am also thankful for the present and that there is still more time to "be content just being" in the moment. This summer I have had time just being present. It is hard for our whole family not being on the fast lane of life.

Instead of being afraid of what is to come, or depressed about what is behind, I keep asking the question about what I can do to show the love of Jesus to others that I can touch presently and in the days ahead. If I didn't have the secure knowledge that Christ loves me regardless of how I look or how I am going to change, I'm not quite sure where I would be!

God has made everything beautiful in His time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil- this is a gift from God! I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere Him! Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account. Ecclesiastes 3:11-15