Gardening and Motherhood.

This is my first year having a "real" garden.

And you know what, I'm realizing the striking similarities to parenting:
*picking a plot to settle*
*tilling the soil*
*planting seeds*
*building a secure fence with a gate*
*watering*
*sunshine*
*pruning*
*harvest time*
*storing away for the future*

I guess when it comes to parenting we don't really "pick our plot", it's more like our plot picks us! Our children were created for us, just as we were created for them. We are the perfect match for one another just as God saw fit.

Then we have the honor "tilling the soil", to me this represents pregnancy or any other way of becoming a parent. Hard work, watching something form before your eyes. Laying the perimeters and preparing your ground. "Planting seeds" starts the moment we begin caring for our babies. Some of the seeds I plant in my kids take more time to harvest, some seeds that we thought were so important never sprout, some multiply with years. What kind of seeds am I planting in my children's lives?
On the "good" days I pray the seeds take root and on other days I pray those seeds WON'T take root!

Next we get the opportunity to "build a secure fence with a gate."
Sometimes I'm not so sure about the "with a gate" part, it's a crazy world out there!! Man, it must be hard to open that gate and let them walk out. We're not there yet and I do believe these are the "good ol' days." I won't lie, sometimes I want to open that gate and let them out for about a week or two!! We'll grow into that I'm sure and then I'll be looking for ways to draw them back in, right?! Oh, silly circle of life. When we dedicated Tyler on his 1st birthday we planted a tree. Our whole family was there and each member took a turn to "water" his tree. It was beautiful. I think the "watering" part has to do with the people that surround our children right now. Who is influencing them? Encouraging them? Showing them what the true Jesus is like? We as parents run dry and it's important to have other adults in their life that LIVING water flows from.

"Sunshine"~one of my favorite things is sunshine on my face. If I'm sitting down and I see a stream of sun coming thru the window, I'll move to it and turn my face right into it's dusty rays. I want the memories we make to be like sunshine in my children's lives. The everyday memories. Don't get me wrong, there are dark, dark, stormy, cloudy, hail, blizzardy days, but the sunshiny ones outweigh the fierce ones, (I'm sure they do in your home as well, don't be so hard on yourself)!! I hope our children will turn their faces toward their childhood with joy. Then there are the "pruning" days. This is more for ME then for them. I am pruned while I teach/train/discipline my kids. I can get ugly and the sign in my bathroom goes right down the toilet~"Be Beautiful Inside" it reads!!! Why is it that on these days I FEEL so pitiful and terrible and inadequate? I think it's because I'M BEING PRUNED. It hurts, it makes me mad, it's tearing away the ME out of ME!! It's not easy pruning or being pruned. It takes courage & patience. I open my arms to it...there's no turning back now.

What a great experience to walk to the garden and see "harvest time" sprouting everywhere.
The rewards of labor.
The sweetness.
The fresh filling.
The relief of tilled, well-planted, fenced in, watered, sunshiny, pruned ABUNDANCE!!
It's what I work for. I read once that children are the living messages that we send to a time we will not see.
"Storing away for the future", that's what we're doing with our children. We're sending these little lives, these souls into a time beyond us.
The next generation sitting on our laps.
That's sobering.

God of harvest~give us the strength we need to toil in what sometimes feels like the hot sun of life. Help us find refuge in the shade of Your guidance and leading.
Let Hope be our anchor and Wisdom our Guide.