How Does Your Garden Grow?

Okay, so this week it has rained and been steamy hot and sunny off and on. And you know what really likes that kind of weather?

Weeds.

I have had to do very little gardening this year and when I went out to check the need for watering this evening I was shocked to see the jungle that is sprouting around my little garden plot in the backyard. Oh man! Guess I know what I am doing tomorrow, huh?

If you've been with me for the last few weeks and sporadic posts you know that God has been doing some awesome works in me. I'm growing, too. Perhaps not quite as fast as the weeds outback, but there is growth nonetheless. I'm working on being a better wife, mother, housekeeper, cook, chief bottle washer and all the other jobs/titles I hold here in the home.

Plant gardens and eat what they produce. Jeremiah 29:5

But perhaps my favorite part of the growth this year is my garden. I love it. I love to water, weed, clip, cut, pinch back flowers, pray over the gardens, and I know I will love to harvest. There is something about planting, tending to, pruning and caring for plants. Maybe it is just playing in the dirt, I don't know. From the day I started tilling the ground for the little plot out back (we also have several containers) I have asked God to be with me in the garden -- help me care of it, harvest it and contribute to the nutrition of our family. Help me be that woman, Lord.

Every day I tend my garden, so that the plants are healthy and bear fruit. And as I was pulling up the mushrooms that seem to really like to grow in my Basil bed a verse came to mind...

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." John 15:1-2

Oh, how I want to be fruitful. To be the branch that produces for my Gardener. I seem to be in a season of life that brings much pruning, but the assurance in this verse that it is for my growth makes me want to rewind the tape of my life and take back all the complaints!!

In these coming days of weeding (both literally and figuratively) in my life I look forward to growing more in Christ and taking another step toward becoming that woman.