How Does Your Garden Grow?

Spring is just around the corner and already new life is just bursting at the seams wanting to break forth with newness inside. I know my poor trees and rose bushes barely had a chance to take their winter's nap before the temperatures became unseasonably warm and thus they are beginning to prepare for spring sooner than they normally would. In fact my poor willow tree had barely just shed it's leaves and already new buds were beginning to form. Now the tree is filled with potential new life just waiting for the pollination of our bees which are just buzzing each time I walk outside to check our mail. Kinda sad when you think about it too.

It reminds me of the nursery rhyme of Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, How does your garden grow? I'm not even ready to head outside and begin preparing the plants for another tough season. So why should it matter. It might still grow without any help from me. It might gain enough moisture from whatever rain we get, even though in Southern California, it hasn't been much at all. In fact as of today, just four days in just four months.

I remember when I first moved into our current home, I feel in love with a plum tree in our neighbor's yard, the beautiful pink blossoms just waiting to bear fruit in due time. Over this last year, however they simply stopped caring for their yard, they stopped watering it, and I guess I can understand in light of the drought we are having. Water can get expensive. But to look at his yard now, it's sad because the tree is now almost dead. I'm sure that it might come back with some loving care, but left to its own, I'm not sure we will see anything this year from it.

When you look at your own garden how does it grow? Are you one of those green thumb types who can grow anything with just the right look? Or are you the prayerful type that when you plant something, you hope it doesn't die and often pray that it doesn't?

I've had to ask myself these same questions and to be perfectly honest, my garden outside pretty much looks like my marriage on the inside. It needs some serious work if it's going to last this year. I'm not be any means saying my marriage is falling apart, but much like my garden outside, if I am looking for some strong roots and blooms to fill my plants, I have to invest some serious time. It will stay if I don't because Steve and I have vowed our marriage will never end in divorce but if I want something more than mediocre, I have to put some time in.

Now to be fair, marriage is about both people putting in equal time, but I can't control my husband. Oh how I wish I could, because I know it would be so much easier with both of us working on it at the same time, but because I am held to a higher standard as a believer in Christ, I will have some answering to do before God if I don't. Simply put, love is all about action, and it is only love when it acts.

It's not about saying all the right things, it's about doing all the right things. Love is a verb, it isn't a noun. It's all about showing the other person, that they are the most important person in the world next to God in your life. That you are willing to put aside all your own interests and instead ask the question, What can I do for you to make your day better?

For us wives, I think the question we need to ask ourselves is how are we doing at our job as a wife? Honestly ask the question, "Am I being the best wife I can be to my husband today?"

If I am 100% honest, I can say, "No, I am not."

So as you can see, I have some work to do but in my garden and in my marriage. I want to invest the time, because I want a marriage that is vibrant, strong, sustaining despite the world around us that simply wants to redefine what marriage is. I want to do it God's way and not my own. So we need to heed the words of Winston Churchill, Britain's Prime Minister who in the midst of the war, stated, "Victory is not won by evacuation."

It's time to dig deep and invest some time. Be filled with God's Spirit because you can't win this war on your own and the enemy wants nothing more than to destroy our marriages. Are you with me?