Flicking through Facebook this morning I found a comment from a friend wondering whether gardening is ever the right thing to do. Having spent two and a half hours working on my troughs and borders on Friday and another five on Saturday, I really hope it is!!
But actually the comment got me thinking, first about how often I've experienced God in the garden and then about some of the significant parallels I can see between the things I enjoy most about gardening and those I'm most passionate about in the rest of my life.
The garden is one of the few places where I've experienced a genuine sense of partnership with God. Let's face it - I can spend a small fortune at the garden centre, sweat for hours digging holes and spreading compost, move potted plants around to my heart's content, but unless God shows up and actually enables stuff to grow, my effort has been for nothing!
This afternoon I mentally made a list of the words I'd used to describe why I enjoy gardening, words like beauty, creativity, growth, imagination, diversity, care, nurture. Then I remembered that only a couple of months ago I made a list of things I'm passionate about in a far broader context... which contains exactly the same words.
It's interesting to note that the gardening list went on to include slightly less fluffy, slightly more challenging words like perseverance and discipline. Can I really claim to be as passionate about those things as I am about beauty and creativity? And what about the key issue of seasons? Let's be honest, gardening would be pretty dull if it was all daffodils and forget-me-nots. Am I willing to embrace the changing seasons when they impact more than just the garden?
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