Lessons From the Garden

If you were around this part of the internet last week, you probably saw my first flower.

I am pleased to report, it has grown nicely.

And I am even more pleased to report, it has friends!!!

The beautiful colors (especially the PINK!) are my reward and motivation which keep me watering and tending to the plants in the midst of our very hot days. But sometimes I feel even more delighted by the little lessons I hear God whisper to my heart as I care for my garden and landscaping.
That is to say, I have been suspicious about a couple of growing things over the past weeks - and I think my questions are now being answerd.
You may recall in the beginning of my story about my flower garden, I mentioned planting seeds for flowers called "Everlastings". And somewhere along the way to the pretty blooms I have now, I thought the Everlastings had vanished. Because there was no sign of them anywhere, while my other seeds were producing greenery. But not too long ago when I was weeding I noticed some growth in the places where I had sown those seeds, and I decided not to pull the little guys - just in case they weren't weeds after all, but the Everlastings which I had written off. I even watered and fed them, fully aware that I might end up pulling them in time.
But now? Now I can distinctly see little flowers forming on the tops of their little stems, and I noticed more of the same growth in two other areas where I also planted those seeds. So I am really starting to think the Everlastings are OK. That, or some weed is going to add color to my yard.
And I am so glad I didn't pull them when I thought they might be weeds.
Which brings me to another part of my landscaping. I am growing mertyl under a tree in my yard and earlier in the summer I dug up a few peices of mertyl from the front of the house to aid the fill-up-the-space-under-the-tree process. *Read that: I am still working to overcome impatience.*
In spite of my best efforts to make the displaced patches of mertyl feel comfortable in their new location, one of them got all brown and brittle and appeared to die. But I kept watering it because I have heard rumors that mertyl is very hearty, and I thought - Why not??? Well, wouldn't you know it, a green thing started growing in the very spot that the mertyl died. But I tend to get a lot of weeds under that tree and I was ready to pull it along with all the others until I thought, What if? What if this isn't a weed, rather it is some hearty mertyl playing resurrection?
So I left it.
But every day for the next week I looked at it and felt disappointed because - aside from its green-ness - it really didn't look like mertyl.
Until yesterday!

Yep. I think that weed is, indeed, resurrected mertyl.

And as I pondered my weed-turned-mertyl (And the possibility that the other "weeds" are actually Everlastings.) it was as if I heard God whispering to my heart, Dear one, are you getting this lesson I've created for you? Do you see the picture I've painted? Sometimes the work I do doesn't appear at first the way it's going to manifest in the end. In the beginning, sometimes people and situations look more like weeds than like cultivated plants. But when you practice patience, when you slow down and reserve judgemnt, when you nurture a specimen even though you aren't sure what it is - dear one, that is when you give Me space to do My best work.

Ah, yes, LORD. Please cultivate patience in me!