New Life Burgeons...

I am not a gardener. Many writers are (visit http://www.novelgarden.blogspot.com/, owned and operated by Deb Raney for proof). Despite my father's amazing abilities to create a Better Homes & Garden-worthy landscape, my thumb is NOT green. In fact, people know to never give me a living plant because I will promptly kill it. I don't set out to end their little lives, I just don't possess the know-how to keep the poor things alive. I'm safer with silk. (Or should I say silk is safer with me...?)

At my former house, I was adept at growing angel flowers. (You know, the ones planted by angels so little kids can pick them without getting into trouble.) But everything I deliberately placed in the ground didn't last. So I quit trying.

Last summer we moved into a new house. Hubby was away on military duty at the time, and I'm not a gardener (did I already establish that?), so the yard was pretty much left alone until now...our first spring in our new house.

Hubby told me last weekend, "We need to get the yard cleaned up."

"We?" I said, expressing my dubiousity (is that a word?) with raised eyebrows. "You want me out there doing yardwork?"

"I'm not going to ask you to plant anything," he assured me (wise man), "but you can rake up dead leaves and pine needles."

Well, now, doesn't that sound like a thrilling pastime? I sighed a few times with sufficient melodrama to show my lack of interest, but he ignored me (he's gotten good at that over the past almost-26 years) and put a rake in my hand. So I raked.

And I discovered the most delightful surprise... Hiding beneath a six-inch accumulation of dead stuff was a carpet of lovely little blue flowers (periwinkle, I've since learned). I felt as though I'd uncovered buried treasure. I dashed to another area and raked, pine needles flying like dirt from a gopher's industrious paws, to find a second spattering of these charming little flowers, this time white.

"Don, look!" I cried, enchanted. He looked, nodded, and said, "There's more pine needles over there. Rake. You're burnin' daylight."

More raking revealed the unfurling leaves of...something. Since the stems are just beginning to break above the soil and aren't bearing blooms of any sort we don't really know what they'll be, but there is definitely evidence of life. Something will blossom there. Such fun!

I have to admit, when I stepped into the yard, rake in hand, I wasn't very enthused. I had no desire to spend my Saturday scraping away piles of brown, withered, dead stuff. But if I hadn't taken the time to peel all the dead away, I would have missed witnessing the first evidences of spring...new life.

Consider 2 Cor. 5:15 (The Message), "The old life is gone; a new life burgeons!" Of course, the scripture refers to men rather than plants, but isn't that what God does for us? He looks at us, sees what we could be, and takes the time to peel away the dry, crusty, dead exterior to reveal fresh, new, beautiful life...

I, for one, am deeply grateful for God's rake and gardening spade.

God bless you muchly as you journey with Him! ~Kim