Friday, March 2, 2007

CHAPTER 3, PAGE 2

The Garden of My Heart

One day while thinking about my garden ~ God showed me how I could think about my soul in a different way. As with a flower garden!

God gave us this beautiful garden (our soul). ~ It is a beautiful garden with every kind of flower that He envisions for us. He is giving us this garden to tend to and we are free to do whatever we want with our garden. When we die, we present to God our garden that He first gave to us.

I thought about everything that it takes to make a beautiful garden and how much deliberate effort it takes to keep the garden free of weeds and the flowers blooming.

A garden needs sunshine, which I see is God and His love for us. A garden needs water, which I see is the life-giving grace that He freely gives to us. In order to have strong and beautiful flowers and plants, fertilizer is needed to feed and nourish the soil and the flowers. In order for a garden to do well, the soil needs to be tilled and broken up.

I see this as the struggles and problems we have in our life. God lets things happen in our life in order to soften and nourish the ground (our soul) so that the flowers can have a perfect environment to grow.

By cooperating with the grace that God gives us and being open to His will, we are allowing the seeds that He has sown for us to grow. Of course a garden has weeds that always seem to pop up {human problems}. Unless we keep control of these weeds they can overtake our garden and choke out all the flowers that were thriving.

I see the weeds as the sin and vice that can be in our lives and that can keep us from being more closely united to God. We are free to ignore or pay attention to Our personal gift from God.

God planted the flowers and it's up to us to nourish and tend our garden. Finally I see that We never planted the flowers and the plants in our garden.

Our garden is perfectly suited for us according to Gods eternal plan. God planted the flowers and it's up to us to nourish and tend our garden so that everything God has planned for us can truly be, and that at the end of our life our garden will be most pleasing to our "Father".

Author Unknown

Good Morning !

Everybody needs encouragement now and then, and I offer these stories and poems to you in the hopes that you'll find something that will touch your heart, something that will help you to face a new day, a new situation, a new problem.

God wants us to lead rich, full lives, and sometimes we need to be encouraged towards the fulfillment of our potential. I know I certainly do. I love finding things to share and perhaps to bring a SMILE to someone’s face.

I am SMILING today – It’s FINALLY Friday -- my favorite day of the week.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

A "hug" delights and warms and charms, it must be why God gave us arms. So, stretch those arms without delay and give someone a hug today!

May your day be blessed with a few SMILES and lots of SUNSHINE to warm your heart !

MA

 

 

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

yes sometimes encouragment comes from the strangest places.

Anonymous said...

All my life I have thought these words being the avid gardener that I was.and how true they are.What another wonderful posting you have made here I love it.There is always something that touches my heart in your journal and many more I read.I always get the lovely warm sunshine too from your journal and without a doubt a smile.I am so happy too it is Friday even if I do not go to work.I can rest a while and play a while with company after Friday,when the wonderful man in my who has been around for 32yrs  finishes his day of work for the week/end as many men do .Yippee it's Friday a whole weekend together I hope the sun shines on us all and you and yours too, and also I hope you get plenty smiles around you.Loved the ditty rhyme at the end.Bless You.Take care God Bless.
Astoriasand http://journals.aol.co.uk/astoriasand/MYSIMPLERHYMES

Anonymous said...

I think too often we forget to hug.  Somehow we all keep "our own space".  How much our children need hugs!

Anonymous said...

Again, an entry that is so touching to my heart.  Thank you.
http://journals.aol.com/mrsm711/LatteDah/     Tracy

Anonymous said...

I loved your story about the garden. I read through it twice to make sure I understood it.  It really hit home with me. Thank you so much.
Pam

Anonymous said...

Have a great weekend! Isn`t this wind crazy???
penny

Anonymous said...

Have a great weekend!!!
Linda :)

Anonymous said...

Happy Friday and Happy Weekend.

Love,
Angela