Mary, Mary...How Does Your Garden Grow?

My world right now is filled with nursery rhymes as I seek to expose our 3 year old to some of the classics. This one really made me stop and think.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

If our lives can be compared to a garden, how is my garden growing?

Some gardens are carefully watered, weeded and tended to with utmost attention to every detail. These gardens are ones that I am so drawn to day after day. Not only are they stunning as you walk by, they graciously invite you to come, rest a while and admire each beautiful feature. The stay is always most enjoyable and as you stroll away, you are pleasantly refreshed since you've been sprinkled with the lingering fragrance of it's sweet blossoms that have somehow permeated deep down inside you.

Since everything has been so well taken care of, these gardens are always overflowing with flowers to give away to others. Sometimes the gift is so rich in value -- just by simply being there for you to come and enjoy. They are open and available when someone needs to be lifted up. Other times, these gardens can sweetly give away -- in abundance -- some of their most prized flowers. All the while, it will be thoughtfully working hard to produce more blossoms to replace what they have given away so generously.

Lately I have been wondering...just how do these gardens get to be so beautiful? What are the secrets to staying on top of all the watering, weeding, growing?

What does this really mean for me?

For me, I believe that it means I have to make daily, (sometimes hourly), trips to my Master Gardner. While I am there sitting at His feet, I'm being filled to the brim as I stop everything else and drink in His beautiful presence. All the while, He is carefully and lovingly helping me with each of my dead branches. However, He does ask that I give them over to Him. Sometimes I do not want Him to take some of my branches. Sometimes I am so ashamed of just how horribly tangled these branches have become.

One thing I have noticed, He never rips them off me -- for that is not His nature. He just waits for me to surrender all the branches, weeds, thorns, etc. When I do, He gives me His perfect peace and joy abounding in place of these dead branches. How He can replace and exchange such beauty for such unfruitfulness I will never understand. But, that is just what He does.

Pride often stands in my way of being vulnerable about my deep short comings, but I feel I need to be in order to complete this illustration. The Lord has revealed to me this week something that I am so ashamed of. However, it is eating me up, making my green grass turn brown, my leaves wither and my flowers unpleasant to smell.

For me, I am in the process of leaving all my jealousy at Jesus' feet. It has been robbing me of my joy and holding me back from all that God desires my garden to be. I am realizing just how deeply this is ingrained in me. I would love to have some of my friend's houses, abundance of money, wonderful way of parenting, abundance of energy, cute figure, athleticism, nice designer clothes, house cleaner, organization skills, creativity, zeal for life, confidence, popularity, etc.

This wrong mentality is robbing me of appreciating the generous gifts God HAS given me. He desires me to have a deep joy and perfect peace as I sit and marvel at what He has done for me.

Thankfully and graciously, God is patient and loving as he peals back layer by layer (built up from years of watering and feeding these ugly weeds). It is not comfortable, but it is necessary for me to be healthy, move on, and grow again.

I HAVE to spend time reading my Bible and in prayer every day, and surround myself with people that can be encouraging me in this effort.

I really don't want to want what other people have. I want to want what God has worked so hard for and given JUST to me.

So, Mary, Mary, my garden is being renovated so that it may be at it's very best potential.

THAT's just how THIS garden grows.