As a gardener, you see change as a new season slowly creeps in. You notice a transformation in the Spring plants as they ever so slowly show signs of age. The leaves turn color as the summer heat eventually sucks the life right out of them. Some plants cling to the last bits of the glory in the soil, seeking the freshness of a cold drink and the life-giving rays of the sun. The plants each clinging onto what life it still holds, rushing to bare fruit in one last-ditch effort to put out seed.
I can’t help but to think it’s much like the seasons of our own lives. Like the garden, we often find ourselves in different seasons clinging onto the parts of life that give us glory and shedding those that don’t. Be cautious in what you allow to be planted in your life, just as you think and plan all winter on which vegetables and flowers you want to plant and where. What we allow in or around us can directly affect our path and growth. Fill your garden with those who will help you grow for the better and support you through your seasons and encourage your journey. Like the heat of the summer sucking the life out of each plant, some people we spend our time with, and energy on, put into us things that don’t make us better people.
As with the plants in the garden, each fighting for the soil and water stretching their roots in hopes to grow the biggest, the prettiest and the most fruit, there will always be those who will try to steal your soil, your water, and cast shade over you in hopes of dampening your growth, your ideas, and derailing your Journey. But, like the seasons of change, the heat of summer will get to the larger plants first and their shade will offer you the protection you need to keep growing. You will dig deeper into the soil, drink the freshness of the water more and continue on your Journey.
In the garden and in my life, I choose to embrace the Seasons of change. To dig deep into the soil, to drink the freshness of the water, and to continue on my Journey, wherever that may lead.
