things are blooming

In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful.

 ~Abram L. Urban

 

I feel very connected to the Earth right now. I am planting, and watering. Weeding and fertilizing. Watching in awe at the beauty around me. It is so satisfying to grow something...

If the littles are outside then I am outside too....so I am present with the littles but I try not to hover and be close every second. I find they need time to talk and be siblings with and without me and my flowers provide me with that opportunity. I love to be dead heading the flowers while observing a game of kick ball or a scooter race down the drive way. Oh the conversations I hear...and I see them figuring things out....and deciding what to do next....

There are times when I am uncertain...and my life seems so full of chaos. I tend to get  my heart so wrapped up in the hurt of those around me that I overlook what might...if I let it..hurt me. Yesterday while weeding I prayed for Stephanie Atkins who just lost her mom.....I prayed for Mandy who was just having a rough day...I prayed for the family whose 18 year old son was killed at the bottom of our hill in a wreck last week, I prayed for Alicia Gillespie whose neighbor had killed himself...she was so sad about it...and for that family too.  I prayed for a couple I know who longs for a baby. I prayed for two friends fighting cancer and their families.  And the whole time I prayed...I weeded...getting the bad things out of my flowers that can strangle them and take away from their beauty and ability to grow. It does the heart good to see a pile of weeds that you have removed from your garden.

I can't control my life or the hurt around me but I can watch my children, and pray, while I take care of my flowers and my garden...and the beauty of it.... is that if I weed, water and fertilize..they flourish and bloom and grow for me...and they are happy and beautiful. No matter what is going on around me....I seem to have a bit of control with the things that grow in my back yard...and that feels good.

The garden is really coming in..and I can't wait to take the first bite of something that I grew.....from the soil that I tilled....

looks like it will be a tomato!

I am hopeful for my garden and my flowers....and the people hurting around me. I am hopeful for the hurt deep inside my heart too.  But for now I am thankful for all my flowers and for all my garden gives me...beauty, satisfaction, a sense of a cycle that I am a part of, and a beautiful way to be with my children both in sharing with them the wonder of growing something...and in being able to be with them outside while they play together...creating sibling memories and growing their closeness and their bonds as brothers and sisters. Plants and people grow. But sometimes they both need a little extra something...water, fertilizer, love,time.....here's to happy growing...and beautiful blooms in your gardens and in your heart.