How’s Your Garden? - by Sue Campbell

In the past few years, I’ve become more interesting in gardening.  I love digging around in the dirt to find the right balance of color, height, and texture of flowers.  This summer, it’s occurred to me that I’m seeing a lot of analogies between creating a more beautiful garden and keeping life in balance.  For instance, every spring, I look forward to the ground warming up and plants starting to sprout, just as it seems my spiritual and physical energy is renewed.  

I get excited about buying annuals and adding to perennials, just like planning new summer activities and tweaking family traditions.  As spring goes into summer, things start to heat up – the plants in the garden take off in a spurt of growth and we jump into full weeknights and weekends. 

Everything’s humming along and then the weeds in my garden start showing up.  Sometimes I’m not even sure something IS a weed, so I let grow until I can tell.  Similar to what happens in my daily routine – I let some things distract me or throw me off balance ---just a little ‘sin’ – seemingly innocent.  Just like my garden, I’ll get to those ‘weeds’ when I can – when I’m not so busy, when I feel like it… 

But, just like when my garden seems dry or cluttered with weeds, when I’ve missed worship, my daily devotion or prayer time with God, I can tell that my soul needs some tending to as well - some spiritual watering and pruning of some of those distractions that are pulling me off center.  Time to spend time on what really matters.  That’s when it all comes together.  When I take the time to water, prune and weed, the real beauty of my garden shines.  I can see the uniqueness and fragile strength of each flower and how together they reflect the brilliance of God’s creation. 

That’s how it is with me - when I keep my ‘weeds’ in check and my soul refreshed with a balance of reading, prayer and worship – I can appreciate God’s abundant blessings and be better equipped to reflect His glory and love to others.