I have a love/hate relationship with summer.
The weather, while wonderful for many, is a nightmare for me. I cannot tolerate direct sun and the heat and humidity…well, let’s just say it’s definitely not my friend.
However, there is nothing I love more than my yard in the summer. I have a lot of shade and a lot of green. The plants grow, wild in many cases, and it gives me great joy to sit and look around at all God has created.
But I have to tend it. I have to cut back the weeds and plant some new flowers and veggies and herbs. I have to water it when it’s dry. I have to prune the lightning struck apple tree, coppice the willow, tend to the roses. If I don’t they will still grow, but they will not reach their full, beautiful, healthy potential.
That’s the same way our relationship is with God. It grows naturally, but for you to get the most out of it, you have to tend it. Nurture it with love. Fertilize it with prayer. Add new ideas and thoughts to grow. Feed it with the Living Water. Most of all, weed out the bad, the hurtful, the mean, the downright dangerous. Prune the things that are not healthy to make room for new shoots of life to branch out.
Even in my yard and garden I am sometimes surprised. I have a big beautiful herb that has sprung up on its own. Wild strawberries sometimes show up in the oddest places! And one year I had a pumpkin vine grow in the middle of the yard with no apparent way for it to have gotten there. There are always miracles in gardens: Eden, Gethsemane, and the garden where Mary Magdalene first saw the promise of the Risen Christ.
“The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth.
We are nearer God’s heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on the earth.” (R. Browning)
This summer may God amaze you with garden miracles, with wonderful surprises, with new growth, cooling breezes, quiet nights, and good friends with which to share them all.
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