Listening to God in my Garden

     For Christmas last year my daughter and son-in-law gave me three raised garden beds. They sit atop legs that make them about waist high for me. No more hands and knees, but I can still tend a garden.
     I've dug in the dirt since I was a kid. After the stress of a school day, my greatest relaxation was to make roads and villages by myself in the backyard dirt.
     That grew into wanting to clean out my mom's iris beds and cut off the suckers around the roses, but not to pull out dandelions from the lawn.
     When Bill and I married, we planted gardens wherever we lived. Working in the garden became "playing in the yard" again. My hands were engaged and my mind was free to listen to God teach me, like He did His disciples, from earthly things. My strawberry plants became analogies of the life He wanted me to live.
     Healthy strawberries produce luscious berries in the summer. Then they send out runners that root down into the soil and become new strawberry plants. The beautiful delicious berries are like the fruit of the Spirit seen in a life devoted to Jesus - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The runners show me the reproduction of Christ's life in others as they watch believers live and bear testimony to Him.
     I have never seen strawberry plants that don't evidence life in both ways, but notice the order: first come the ripe red berries, then the runners and new plants.
Insightfully yours,
Paulita