Happy Place

The sweet peas are back in their happy place! Nick and I always planted the sweet peas at the far left end of the garden. The last few years of his life, we didn’t plant them, because we weren’t here in May to harvest them. After his death, I condensed the garden and planted them at the far right end. The creek rose three feet that year, taking most of the plants with it. Last year I moved them out of flood threat, but not to their original location. Crop rotation, you know. They didn’t like that space. This year they are back in their happy place!

What joy it brings me to see them thriving! It has been several years since I have had any sweet peas to harvest, but I am feeling very optimistic about this year!

We all know that we are to bloom where we are planted, make the best of an unpleasant situation, and use every situation as an opportunity to glorify God, but let’s admit it. Most of us have a happy place, a place where growth seems easy and life is good and praise leaps to our lips without effort.

As much as it is in our ability to do so, I think we should put ourselves in our happy place. If hiking in the woods makes you happy, leave the laundry for later and take a walk. If holding that baby fills you with joy, respond to your emails later. If a walk on the beach brings you closer to God, figure out a way to get there.

But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need for only one thing.” Luke 10:41

I have found great joy writing these posts. Actually, I have found great joy thinking about what I am writing in these posts. I have found joy thinking about God and specifically about my relationship with God, my garden, if you will. Thinking about and writing these posts has become a happy place, where I let the other things fade away. There’s many I have written which I may never post, but they are bearing fruit in my life even so.

Do you have a happy place? A place where you feel closer to God, a time when the cares of the world fade in the background and communion with God seems easier? Perhaps it is time with a beloved friend, or quiet time with your spouse. Perhaps just looking at a body of water puts everything in perspective, as it does for me. Perhaps it is a steady jog on a well-known path.

God has filled the earth with happy places for His creation. The sweet peas were not happy in the area where I usually grow cucumbers, nor in the area where I normally grow peppers. They have their own happy place, at the far left end of the garden. The actual place is not nearly as important as the fact that it is where we meet God, commune with Him, worship Him.

Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. … True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. John 4:21,23

Sometimes gardening is just such a happy place. Admittedly, sometimes it is a place of hard work, struggle, and frustration. Perhaps there is a lesson here as well. Many of our happy places are not always happy. It takes effort to hike; sometimes the baby screams; sand can be hard to walk in; the words don’t come; friends and spouses argue; storms obscure your view of the water; muscles cramp when you jog. But when I see those glorious sweet peas, somehow, the effort and failures fade into the background.

I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:6

May you, like my sweet peas, find your happy place.

Betsy