Pure Bliss

For me, there is nothing more calming, soothing, or meditative than being able to work in a flower bed or garden. I itch in the late winter / early spring to get outside and dig up last years' remains in order to start the entire process all over. Even if it is simply clearing out clutter and digging up bulbs, splitting them and finding a new area in the bed so that they look fresh and new. It makes me so happy to feel as if I have accomplished a task and enables me to go to bed exhausted, but happy.

I could literally spend hours in the gardening department of any store checking out the planting season, blooming season, soil and sun preferences and watering preferences of any plant. I love the smell of freshly tilled soil and feeling the cool dampness of the dirt and worms squishing between my fingers. I'll often take off my flip flops and walk barefoot in the beds just to feel this mess that will eventually turn into precious flowers.

On this weekend of remembrance of what Christ did for us by submitting to death on the cross I wonder if God sees His children as a dirty bed of weeds, rocks, and last years' remains, or of the beautiful flowers and plants that He knows we can be? I'm sure that just as any gardener will attest, it's not necessarily the end of the season when the work you have put into your soil has come into fruition that you are the happiest but the hours of sweat, the callouses and the dirty fingernails, the smell of dirt, the physical exertion and the simple joy of gardening. God's love for us never ceased, even when we were weeds, rocks or remains of what used to be ~ He's loved and looked upon us through every bad storm, every sunny day, and every frost to help us know that we are loved ~ no matter if we are in bloom or out.

Happy Easter ~ go hug your gardener.