Spiritual Garden

I am a wannabe gardener! I love the idea of having a lush beautiful garden. For the past several years I have attempted to plant container gardens on my apartment balcony. The first year was a complete disaster. I killed just about everything. The second year was a little bit better though most things were dead by mid summer. A little over a year ago I decided to take a community education class on “container gardening” and soak up all the information I could on the best plants, best containers, best soil, and the best practices. Armed with all this information I was sure I was going to be totally successful and have beautiful lush container gardens. You can imagine my frustration when several of the plants died a month or so after planting. I had been diligent about watering and fertilizing and watching how much sun the various plants were getting…yet some of the plants died! However, all was not lost; many of the plants flourished. One of the flowers even grew at little out of control! I have come no where near mastering the art of gardening!

I can with confidence say the same thing about the art of spirituality! My spiritual life has been much like my container gardens. Sometimes my spiritual life has been very dead. It felt like I was in a desert and was stuck and couldn’t grow. Reflecting on these times in my life I realize that either I was not taking care of myself not giving myself the necessary time or “nutrients” to grow or there was something toxic in my life that was slowly killing my spirit. I find that it is during these times that I had to “let go and let God.” I had to let others tend to and nurture my soul because I was not able to do so. I realized God was planting a whole new garden.

More often than not my spiritual life has looked like my container gardens last summer-some death and lots of growth. It is in these times that I’m continually growing and nurturing my spirit and my relationship with God. Some parts of my spirit die because they are not longer needed. While this can be frustrating because it feels like I have failed I have to remember that this is all part of the art of spirituality. Our spirit is always changing and growing. Thus, it is important for parts of us to die in order to create space for something new to grow. It is exciting to see what new seeds God plants in us and what parts of us flourish during these moments!

No matter what you spiritual garden looks like remember that it is God’s garden and it is good!

(Photo Credit: SDCDeaCerte)