Tag: garden

Cooler Weather

It’s hot today, but just last week we enjoyed unusual cool weather. The cool morning air called me to set my coffee down and pull some weeds. What a lovely time to be outside.

Recent rains have made my grass green again. The hedgerow has ended its summer siesta and is greeting me with outstretched limbs and upturned leaves. I know the days are getting shorter and soon these plants will tire and fade, but it is still August. My tomatoes may be on their last leg, but the peppers, the basil, the raspberry, and the fig are full of life.

So are the weeds.

During the hot weeks, I stopped pulling them every day. Their growth was stunted by the heat, as was my willingness to exert myself. But the cooler weather revived us all.

The cardboard laid across the ground has done a fair job of keeping the weeds away from the plants, but the fence line is a different story. There, on the edges of the cardboard, where the fence meets exposed ground, the weeds thrive. Crabgrass reaches over the mulch to cover the ground; tall grasses rejoice in their safety from the mower; pilgrims from the hedgerow find new homes. Sometimes the garden plants are hard to see through the weeds.

How did I let this happen? I had been so conscientious earlier in the summer. My attention had waned with the heat and the lack of fruit. Other matters had occupied my thoughts and my hands.

Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion, your adversary the devil prowls around looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kind of suffering. 1 Peter 5:8-9.

I have not been disciplined, alert, steadfast. I have let the weeds grow.

But it is a beautiful cool morning so I will pull some now. I will recommit myself to pulling some weeds every morning.

Therefore, we must pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. Hebrews 2:1.

Drifting away is so easy. New interests draw my eye. Other activities demand my time. Different challenges occupy my mind. Suddenly I am no longer focused on loving God and loving my neighbor. Suddenly there are weeds growing in my garden.

Sometimes I find it hard to focus on loving one another. It’s so nebulous. No clear check list. What does it mean to love one another just as Jesus loved us? (John 13:34)

Fortunately, Paul gives us a description of what a weed-free garden of love looks like.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it’s not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.

I have some weeds in my garden. They grew when I was busy with other things, when I had drifted away, when I wasn’t paying attention.

But God has granted me the grace to see the weeds and the gift of a cool morning. It’s not too late to pull some weeds. It’s never too late to share God’s love.

Do you know how much God loves you? Each and every one of you, no matter how many weeds are growing in your garden, no matter how little fruit is evident, no matter how far you may have drifted. God loves you.

Won’t you join me today in the cool of the morning? We’ll pick the weeds that hide the beautiful plants growing in our lives.

Love in Christ, Betsy

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Nothing Remains The Same

Old age and high temperatures have taken their toll on my sugar snaps. I waited to plant some of my seeds until mid-March, so I might have sugar snaps in June, but it is too warm for them now. Their time has passed. Now, all my attention needs to go to the rest of my garden.

My tomato plants are sporting yellow flowers, promising red fruit in the future. Tiny green orbs are dotting my pepper plants. The cucumbers are claiming the space provided. My garden is growing. Even the fig and raspberry bushes are gaining height and sprouting new leaves, perfumed by the basil nearby.

Whenever I hear something that begins with “If things stay this way,” the gardener in me laughs. Things never stay the same. Nothing ever stays the way it is. God created His universe to be in a constant state of change. Even things that seem permanent to us like mountains and oceans are constantly changing incrementally. We know this. We have known this since childhood. And yet we still strive for permanence.

We strive to make things perfect in some delusion that they might stay that way. We build homes and offices to withstand storms, but we know they are not truly permanent. Ruins from civilizations long gone remind us that structures may outlast their inhabitants, but they will not remain the same.

The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever. Isaiah 40:8.

We long for that permanence like we long for the tree that produces fruit year-round. Because God has planted that image in our soul, an image of lasting permanence, an image of eternity, an image of Himself.

And He reminds me that I cannot achieve this by my own efforts on this earth. He reminds me of this every day as I walk along the garden and see how it has changed since yesterday.

There is a time for everything. It was true when Solomon said it, and it is true today.

I am not going to fret over the loss of my sugar snaps. They had a glorious season, but it is time for other fruits to shine. I will pull a garlic bulb soon to see how they are doing. Little green tomatoes will ripen into red ones. The cucumbers will continue to indulge their appetite for space.

And while I wait for all these changes, I will water and tend my garden daily. I will treasure this garden for bringing me outside every day. I may even pull the weeds that create a border around my growing plants.

These plants remind me that change is not always a bad thing. I do not want my garden to stay as it is right now, as beautiful as it is to me. I want my plants to age and bear fruit, even if it signals their impending death. That is these plants’ purpose.

I don’t want to stay the same forever either. I want to grow and mature and bear fruit, even as I know I am moving ever closer to my demise. I may live thirty more years; I may die today. God cares for me no matter my life span. He loves me and has put me here for a purpose. He loves you and has put you here for a purpose.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared before hand to be our way of life. Ephesians 2:8-10.

And that word of God does remain the same, remains as true today as it was when it was written.

O give thanks to the God of heaven, for his steadfast love endures forever. Psalm 136:26.

Betsy