Most of my readers know by now that I am caregiver to my elderly parents, and that my dad is in very poor health. Just this week we had three doctors appointments and a trip to the emergency room with him. My life these days is very stressful and I stay both physically and emotionally exhausted all of the time.
Last spring my dad was in the hospital a lot, plus we were in a very bad drought, so I didn't do much gardening. I just didn't have the heart for it, and told myself that I didn't have the time or energy. Sadly, because of my inability to get my butt in gear, I lost a number of my precious perennials.
This year I've learned my lesson, and changed my ways, and thanks to encouragement from my husband, am back out in the garden again. What I had lost last spring, I rediscovered this spring, and I'm so glad I've 'felt' that feeling again. That feeling of digging in the dirt and making my yard pretty again, and of expending all the frustration, exhaustion, and stressful energy, and replacing it with the peaceful, contented, calming energy that comes from playing in the dirt!
As I work in the garden, usually bending over and looking down to the earth, my mind and my heart tend to look upward, and wander in several directions:
- prayer - somehow I can just lift my heart, my worries, my hopes and dreams up to my Father so much clearer and easier when I'm in the garden!
- talking (silently, in my heart) through things that are bothering me, and working through them, and often finding solutions.
- and frequently, after I've spent time in prayer and worked my way through problems, I end up humming or singing to myself, a product of having let it all go, giving it to God, and opening my heart to His healing touch.
Rarely do I spend time in the garden that I don't pass through these three 'phases', and never do I leave the garden in a bad mood! (Unless, of course, I'm fighting the voles, but at least in that I have purpose!)
And most times when I am singing to myself, it is the words to one of my favorite hymns, "In The Garden". The words just speak volumes about how it feels to work outside, enjoying the beauty of God's creation and the work of your own two hands, communing in a peaceful, connected way with the creator of it all!
Here are the words to the hymn, written by C. Austin Miles in 1912:
I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses.
And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.
He speaks, and the sound of His voice,
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,
And the melody that He gave to me
Within my heart is ringing.
And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.
I’d stay in the garden with Him
Though the night around me be falling,
But He bids me go; through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling.
And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.
God Bless You! Becky
