Cultivating The Garden of my Heart

It's Spring Time! A new fresh season of life is here. Spring is one the my favorite seasons of the year. I am still in the mindset of a new year, new goals, new habits, etc. and Spring gives me an added boost of energy as I am sure it does most people. The sun seems brighter, the yard and trees are starting to show their greens while Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrushes blanket the Texas hillside each day. I find myself lost in wonder of all the new life in God's creation as I drive or look out the windows of my countryside lakehouse. With natural eagerness, it doesn't take me long to unlach and raise a window to feel the cool breeze on my cheecks and to listen to the morning songs of finches, blue jays, and cardnials. Ah, yes, Spring is a special season isn't it?

It is time to get out and do some digging. I am a gardening girl to my core! And I have layers of ideas and plans for what I want to plant this year, where each type of seed is going to grow and what rewards my labor will produce for me. In these plans I have thought about the areas on my property that I want to work on. Some areas have beautiful rich soil that I can break up with ease, while others have challenging clay and limestone issues. These areas are not ideal for the vegtables I like to grow, and I usually have to have an alternative plan like raised beds and a special blend of vegtable soil. Which got me to thinking...this can often times reflect the type of soil God has to work with in our lives.

The Lord compares our hearts to a Garden in Jeremiah 31. In one parable, Jesus says your heart is like soil; if you plant the right seeds, you will bring forth good fruit--some thirty, some sixty, and some hundredfold. The goal for my heart-garden is to be so healthy that it can grow more fruit, and produce good results. Allowing the improvements to bring glory to God.

My time gardening is a common place where God often meets with me. Over the years of my life, I have found myself on my knees hunched over soil talking and listening to God. Tools in hand, pulling up weeds, digging in the ground and talking. Talking, crying, listening, pouring out my soul in front of soil. The Garden is a very special place for me and Jesus. One day, years ago, as I was pruning back rose bushes but also hurting inside and unable to understand why that season seemed so tough. When I heard him say quietly to me "Sarah, this is how I am working on you right now". With every clip of the pruning shears I could see what He meant. The cuts were necceassry on the rose bush in my hand, and the cuts to my heart in His hands were too. I was removing  dead and diseased canes and so was He. I knew the pruning of my roses would trigger new buds at the base and new vigorous canes would form, and I could see that was His purpose also. I knew that rose bushes are rarely damaged during this process and He was reminding me of that. Reassuring me that it was just as neccessary to my heart as it was for my roses. My heart was feeling the process, and yet there wasn't going to be any damage done. It would only bring new life. I surrendered that moment to Him when He said "You are my rose bush, Sarah. Do you trust me?"

So the question today is...Do you trust Him?

Do you trust The Master Gardner with the garden of your heart?

I promise that you will come to see that you can. Hand him the pruning sheers, the spade shovel, the weeding and digging knife. You will not regret it. As you do this you will begin to grow in ways you didn't think possible. You may not understand this season right now, but it is a neccessary season. If you surrender your will and your ways to The Lord and allow Him to work on you through it you will begin to gain strength, peace and new life during all of the cutting and pruning. 

"Here it is Lord, I give it all to you. I trust you."

The Bible verse I am reminded of goes something like this in Jeremiah 17...Blessed are those who trust in the LORD and have made the LORD their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit. 

I pray a blessing of new life this Spring over you today.

With love,

Sarah Ferguson