Gardening for me began 30 years ago when my mom and I moved into my grandmother’s home. The garden beds were there along the back of the house, and they needed attention.

 

The backyard remained open until one evening a few years’ later when a large dog came charging through. My cat was leashed out on the patio, so I dashed out to protect him. He and I, and a wild rabbit who had been relaxing a few yards away, were left gaping at the disappearing tail end of the happy canine. The dog’s burst of unleashed freedom led me to finish what my neighbor in back had begun the year before when he fenced his backyard to give his little boys a safe place to play.

 

Soon after my space was fenced, that family moved. My garden quickly expanded from just along the house to also along the fence in an attempt to grow an additional green barrier that would hide our view of the new neighbors’ snarly-scary dogs and keep them from seeing my cat who now was unleashed and very good about staying safe in ‘his’ fenced garden.

 

The garden has developed from there — a place of much labor, but also of flowers and produce that change every year. Magazines have encouraged me to think of garden areas as “rooms,” and public gardens have provided ideas. There have been bounteous years with produce to share and lean ones where not much wanted to grow. Bird feeders brought birds and clumps of weeds from seed burying chipmunks and squirrels. Bird baths provided many critters relief from the heat.

 

And at least once a year I reach a point of thinking I am completely nuts as I hauled rocks, dug dirt, and spread mulch to the point of exhaustion. On those days spending summer somewhere by a lake seemed a much saner plan for life.

 

Our spiritual lives may be like gardens in many respects.

 

We often inherit our spiritual life from our ancestors, and we work with the foundations they left, perhaps at first not seeing any reason to do more than what was done before.

 

But with the various threats and needs that crop up in life, we may have found it necessary to buttress our faith and take steps to protect it. That protection may have inspired others to embrace a safe haven of committed faith.

 

As our prayer lives grow and develop, we become motivated to build on what we’ve learned, working toward promised growth. We read about God, seek out advice from saints and other experts, and develop new ways of looking at, and being in, the world with God and neighbor.

 

There will be dry years for us spiritually, and we develop fortitude and strength. There also will be seasons when faith seems to be made up of gentle sunshine and life-giving rains, and we develop hope in heaven. 

 

Various kinds of storms may leave us feeling upended, disoriented and tempted to change course. Those storms may require us to focus on our foundations for a while. 

 

We may be asked to share how to adjust our prayer and work to what each day brings. We may be welcomed to show off our flowers, admit our weeds and humbly give God the credit for any fruit. We encourage our spiritually-minded friends and receive encouragement from them.

 

Worries may tempt us away from enjoying what we have. If we focus on what is bad, we can miss all that’s good and beautiful. Then the leisure and pleasures of a less-committed life may seem smarter than ours.

 

But once we ponder all we’ve gained, and feel a connection to history and heaven and a bit of eternity, we grow in faith again.

 

As years go by, we hopefully learn to stop taking so seriously what, after all, is subject to so much beyond our control. We realize we only have to do our best with what we are given.

 

In gardening and in faith, we can gradually begin to trust God to take over with His ultimate strength and ability to protect, destroy and again renew us and our creations. 

 

We learn to trust … and enjoy the beauty and fruitfulness that, in the end, always come from God.