The Garden of Life

Has it ever struck you how a garden imitates life?

A garden requires constant care; weeding out the bad from the good; lots of kneeling and inspecting and nurturing; looking for disease and detrimental insects and getting rid of them; plenty of hoping for the right conditions of weather and heat and rain; sometimes even asking Mother Nature (God) for a good crop, whether flowers or vegetables. 

Well, on second thought, maybe you don’t understand that.  If you were born after 1970, I doubt that you’ve ever actually grown or tended a garden.  Gardens are probably thought to be passé and besides, most of us don’t have the big yards our parents and grandparents had to devote a whole section to a garden. Nor do you have the time it takes to do all those chores.

That’s a real shame!  We can learn so much from the simple pleasures of gardening.

A second cousin (I believe that is our relationship, but I’m kind of poorly schooled on genealogy) writes a column similar to mine, but somewhat different as well.  Her blog is more likely to have religious connotations and a lot about nature. She lives in Southern Arizona, so that gives her lots of material to write about and a lot of time to reflect and devote to Christian endeavors.

The column she wrote this past week was about gardening, and it inspired this column for me.  I’m going to link you to her column, Simply Life, because it is a lot more meaningful than mine.  It also is a precursor and an ad for a 30-day devotional book she has written titled, Gardens of the Heart that is available on Amazon. 

And that brings us full circle to the beginning premise of this column, how life is like a garden that needs persistent tending.  It doesn’t take much to fall by the wayside an so many of us do that, myself included.  Perhaps Laurinda’s little book will assist you to tend your garden.  I hope you’ll give it your attention.

Also, maybe next spring would be a good time to start your own garden, or to get your children to start one.  There is plenty of advice in Gardens of the Heart about both gardening and living, so it would be a great beginning for us even though I don’t have space for a garden in my postage stamp yard.  After all, what better way to make ends meet while gaining some personal perspective in these perilous times than to start your very own garden?

Oh, and while you’re waiting for spring to come around, it might be a good time to start that other garden, the one in your heart. It’s never too early for that.