Unstructured Structured Garden
On 7/8/10, I posted a blog that gave my answer to the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” My answer was “LIFE happens to everybody! Rich or poor, male or female, black or white, banker or construction worker, LIFE happens to all of us.” My answer to the question “Why did this specific bad thing happen to me?” is very different. The specific bad thing in question at the moment is the recurrence of C in my lungs.
My answer to this question is: “I don’t know; I’ll find out when I die and go to Heaven and can ask God, and that’s soon enough for me.” And then I add, “In the meantime, I am here on earth in this life, and I intend to enjoy every minute of it.” I very much believe in living in the present, being positive, and enjoying life to the fullest. If there is a lesson to be learned from a bad thing that happens or a mistake I made, then I embrace that lesson, thank God and anyone else involved for teaching it to me, internalize it into my thinking, and then carry on with my life. God has taught me many lessons during these past 6 months and I am now better equipped to serve Him as I enjoy my life to the fullest!
My sister informed me when she was here in July, that mine is an “unstructured structured garden”. It is structured because the flower beds are laid out with distinct borders. It is unstructured because within those borders, I let the flowers grow as they please, or – another way to put it, I let God grow them as He pleases. I mean, you can’t exactly tell God how to grow your flowers in a garden that He is using to teach you about healing and other life lessons!!!! Tonight it was so beautiful to walk up my sidewalk and see and smell the gorgeous, fragrant fuchsia blooms on the 4 o’clocks, the lavender flowers on the sprawling lantanas, the red stripes of the blossoms on the salvia, and the light blue salvia floating like stalks in front of a deep dark maroon-colored plant. It truly looked like a real English garden, a mass of color!!! I envisioned it to be like that back in the spring when I first planted it, and finally, 5 months later, God has grown it to be like that. It is like my life, the way God has shaped it – beautiful, brilliantly colorful, full of diversity, and brimming with love and friendship. Each one of the plants represents a friendship to be carefully tended – fertilized, watered, mulched, and weeded. Each bloom represents one of my supporters, and I know there are many all across the United States and the world. When I send out a prayer request to one person, that person gives it to several prayer chains, and thus the supporters and the prayers grow exponentially, like a ripple effect. That is what God is showing me. See in the pictures how the 4 o’clocks are growing over their borders in GreenScape and in Ferngully and all 4 of the Mexican petunias are blooming. I once wrote that they have a strong life force and I like to bask in it! I won’t let Al cut them back. All life is sacred to me now, and I don’t mind having to part the bushes to get up my walk to the front door!! I just marvel at God’s wondrous works in my garden, and I give Him thanks and praise!!!!!
God is also teaching me the importance of being with my friends. It takes my mind off of the physical health glitch in my lungs. Frequently when I have a visitor, something happens in my garden for the first time. After my sisters’ visit, lavender flowers bloomed for the 1st time in the back yard. When our friends EJ and Laurie came over, the 4 o’clock plants in the cracks of the sidewalk bloomed for the 1st time. Now our good friends Pat and Pam Quick and their 2 children, RaeAnn and Patrick, stopped by last night and when they left, I saw a hummingbird in my garden for the first time!!!! God is letting me know the importance of nurturing friendships.
On 7/8/10, I posted a blog that gave my answer to the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” My answer was “LIFE happens to everybody! Rich or poor, male or female, black or white, banker or construction worker, LIFE happens to all of us.” My answer to the question “Why did this specific bad thing happen to me?” is very different. The specific bad thing in question at the moment is the recurrence of C in my lungs.
My answer to this question is: “I don’t know; I’ll find out when I die and go to Heaven and can ask God, and that’s soon enough for me.” And then I add, “In the meantime, I am here on earth in this life, and I intend to enjoy every minute of it.” I very much believe in living in the present, being positive, and enjoying life to the fullest. If there is a lesson to be learned from a bad thing that happens or a mistake I made, then I embrace that lesson, thank God and anyone else involved for teaching it to me, internalize it into my thinking, and then carry on with my life. God has taught me many lessons during these past 6 months and I am now better equipped to serve Him as I enjoy my life to the fullest!
My sister informed me when she was here in July, that mine is an “unstructured structured garden”. It is structured because the flower beds are laid out with distinct borders. It is unstructured because within those borders, I let the flowers grow as they please, or – another way to put it, I let God grow them as He pleases. I mean, you can’t exactly tell God how to grow your flowers in a garden that He is using to teach you about healing and other life lessons!!!! Tonight it was so beautiful to walk up my sidewalk and see and smell the gorgeous, fragrant fuchsia blooms on the 4 o’clocks, the lavender flowers on the sprawling lantanas, the red stripes of the blossoms on the salvia, and the light blue salvia floating like stalks in front of a deep dark maroon-colored plant. It truly looked like a real English garden, a mass of color!!! I envisioned it to be like that back in the spring when I first planted it, and finally, 5 months later, God has grown it to be like that. It is like my life, the way God has shaped it – beautiful, brilliantly colorful, full of diversity, and brimming with love and friendship. Each one of the plants represents a friendship to be carefully tended – fertilized, watered, mulched, and weeded. Each bloom represents one of my supporters, and I know there are many all across the United States and the world. When I send out a prayer request to one person, that person gives it to several prayer chains, and thus the supporters and the prayers grow exponentially, like a ripple effect. That is what God is showing me. See in the pictures how the 4 o’clocks are growing over their borders in GreenScape and in Ferngully and all 4 of the Mexican petunias are blooming. I once wrote that they have a strong life force and I like to bask in it! I won’t let Al cut them back. All life is sacred to me now, and I don’t mind having to part the bushes to get up my walk to the front door!! I just marvel at God’s wondrous works in my garden, and I give Him thanks and praise!!!!!
God is also teaching me the importance of being with my friends. It takes my mind off of the physical health glitch in my lungs. Frequently when I have a visitor, something happens in my garden for the first time. After my sisters’ visit, lavender flowers bloomed for the 1st time in the back yard. When our friends EJ and Laurie came over, the 4 o’clock plants in the cracks of the sidewalk bloomed for the 1st time. Now our good friends Pat and Pam Quick and their 2 children, RaeAnn and Patrick, stopped by last night and when they left, I saw a hummingbird in my garden for the first time!!!! God is letting me know the importance of nurturing friendships.
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