Garden Devotion 3/25/09

In the days before I had a blog, I sometimes posted a note on Facebook. I found this note in my memories of this day and decided to move it to my blog so I could keep track of it. I wrote this as a devotion for my preschool coworkers, back in the spring of 2009. My dad was still alive then. I had young people around the house. I had just begun working outside the home again. I sometimes wish I could travel back in time for a day or so, but as I read this I find that the feelings from eight years ago are still pretty true. I hope it might bless you in some way.

I am a spring lover: a grass-hugger, a robin watcher, a flower talker, a picture taker. I start to literally itch when spring gets close. I love what God does to the world, right in front of our eyes, every single year. Because of spring, I can believe in restoration in my own life. Because of spring, I know of rebirth. Because of spring, I can rejoice during the “winter-subzero-blizzard” periods of my life. I hear God speak most clearly in the spring.

As we all know (all of us Midwesterners, anyway), grass does not start out green at this time of the year. “Greening up” is a process, which also usually involves rain and mud. The mud part has been especially obvious in my yard. I seem to fight each year to try to make grass grow and muddy patches shrink. A couple of years ago, I called on a professional lawn service to come plant grass seed for me. I watched, dumbfounded, as they simply sprinkled seed over the hard packed earth. What do you suppose happened? Nothing. Well, not so much “nothing” as a breakfast buffet for all the little birds and chipmunks in the neighborhood. As much as I desire to learn from the parables Jesus taught in the bible, I really didn’t intend for my very own back yard to become one of them. You remember the parable of the sower, in Matthew 13: “As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.” I can tell you now, Jesus knew what he was talking about. My grass growing problems are compounded by the fact that I have three boys that like to play in my yard, I have trees that spread their roots close to the surface of my yard, and my yard is very shady. I have come to discover that although grass does sometimes grow in the woods, domesticated grass does not care for shady areas. Oh how I wish I couldn’t see the parallels between my gnarly, shady, small, boy-trodden yard and my gnarly, shady, small, sin-trodden walk with Christ! I long for an intimacy with Christ that creates in me a palatial field of verdure. Instead, I bring in trees to block His light. I hem myself in and make my yard small. I retrace the same, worn paths in my life, turning them to mud. My contrary back yard has convicted me of my need for change in my life. I am determined to grow grass in my back yard.

I am also determined to learn from the birds that I so enjoy watching as they flit about from branch to branch, singing as though they haven’t a care in the world. My camera has a nice zoom, and I love the opportunity to take pictures of birds of all kinds. To be able to focus in on the beauty in each feather and each feature, unique to that bird, causes me to marvel at God the artist/creator. I see clearly what He has done when it comes to birds of the air, but I don’t always necessarily let that knowledge permeate into every other area of my life. I want to hold loosely to the things in this world and not give in to worrying. I have a favorite story from a few years back when my dad was in the hospital recovering from gall bladder surgery. He was in his 70’s at the time, and a social worker was sent in to interview him to ascertain his mental and emotional fitness as he approached check-out time. She asked a whole slew of questions, and then came to my personal favorite. “Charles, how do you handle stress?” My dad’s completely forthright answer was, “I worry.” He continues to worry about each of his “kids” even from his care center room at 89 years old. He can see the carefree birds flying just outside his window, but still he worries. In Luke 12: 22-26, the Bible says, “Then Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?’” That is a very good question, and it is my desire to relinquish worry to my Lord and Master. 

Spring takes me out into the garden each year. In fact, in the spring, I am an overzealous gardener. As my Facebook friends, you have probably noticed my freakish, photographic obsession with flowers. As I mentioned, I am a flower-talker. Those first spring flowers delight me down to my toes. I am sure that if my neighbors happen to be watching out their windows as I am out in my garden, they may think me slightly off my rocker. I take more pictures of my flowers than some people take of their second-born child (okay, maybe even their firstborn). And the neat thing about the first spring flowers is that they take no work on my part. I put them in the ground in the fall ONCE and God does the rest, year after year. If only I would be that patient with struggles in my life, that willing to relinquish control to God! I want to learn to rest in the knowledge that God has a plan for me and my children. I want to see His hand in all my life, even the times when I, like the flower bulb, seem to be buried under ground with no life in me.

As I said before, I love spring. I think I love spring even more because it is the season of Easter, the season of God putting on flesh and living on earth, the season of God sacrificing His only Son so that we can have eternal life. It is the season of resurrection. I want to close with a poem I wrote a few years back.

The Song
--by Elizabeth Traff

The song of spring comes to me
On a breeze, gently whispering
Its message of change and resurrection,
A new beginning, a glorious display
Of vibrant color where there once
Was only emptiness and silence.
The trees each bring to life
A fresh green, so bright and clean;
The color is impossible to remember precisely
And equally impossible to forget completely.
The birds of the air burst forth
With songs of joy that make me
Want to join their chorus,
Their celebration song to the Creator of life.
They steadfastly build their nests
To prepare for their families yet-to-be.
The song of spring is everywhere.
I cannot breathe without singing along;
I cannot walk without dancing;
I cannot speak without crying for joy:
The Creator of it all knows my name!
Who am I that this Master of beauty
Should care about my life?
Yet He sings this song of life with me.
He teaches me the words and the melody.
He holds my hand and tells me
To sing with Him so all can hear
The message of life-creating,
Life-saving, resurrection joy.
The song of spring comes to me
On a breeze, gently whispering,
And I smile and join the chorus;
I could not possibly keep silent.
Oh, my friend, I long to hear
Your voice beside mine.