Out with the old in with the new ...sad

So I am painting a garden, making a garden, but what I really want is to be in a garden this time of the year. I went to the Pacific Northwest Flower and Garden Show last weekend. I was so anticipating a bit of eden this time of the year, a break from the rain and all the cloudy skies. Unfortunately I left with out my fix. The garden show was a huge disappointment. I have been many times in years past, and have enjoyed a bit of heaven on earth right in the middle of winter. Somehow this year it all went very commercial, just a lot of people trying to make a lot of money. The vendor part of the show was quadrupled what it has been in past years. What garden displays they did have, were so commercially pronounced, lots of hardscaping, including a tikki bar, a nomadic tent, something that looked like the Sierra Nevada's.(lots of large rocks) Where was the FLOWER part of the Flower and Garden show? In years past this show would send me into garden nirvana. It seems to me, much of the traditional flavor of Seattle is starting to disappear in many ways. SAD! I think that change has never been my favorite part of life, especially when the good part of old is lost to the bad part of new. I like gardens that are old, and cities that have history, people who have gained wisdom and cultures that don’t loose all their roots. Side note of my weekend, we also spent sometime buying furniture. We have been trying to decorate our new home. We went to the costco furniture warehouse, and found a vendor in there selling furniture from India. The store was full of beautiful spanking new stuff, but I was oblivious to it all. This furniture captivated all my attention. The pieces were all made from reclaimed wood and architectural pieces from old buildings. I was so drawn to this furniture; each and every piece was one of a kind. I didn’t even bother to look at all that brand new shinny stuff. This furniture had character, a past. It was rebuild and reclaimed and made to function for a new day and time, but the history of it previous life was the beauty of the piece. So I wait for my new old furniture to be delivered, for the rain to stop so I can start planting a new garden, for new memories to take place in, and spring to evolve…but I am painting this picture of a very old garden in England, so I can gaze at the old even through the new. Did I mention a wedding we attended this weekend, new beginnings are great too!

Come Away with Me

Come away with me, my beloved! I have been waking up with these words singing in my spirit every day now for about two weeks. I thought it was just a personal invitation for me, from the Father. Son 2:10 My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. Son 2:13 The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. During these last six months, I have been noticing a pattern of God speaking to me, which I always assume is for me personally, but this year it has been more than that. I find out eventually God is saying very similar things to others at the same time. I find this fascinating and very practical. If I remember to pay attention, God is actually showing me how to pray for my church, friends, and family. Jer 33:3 says 'Call to me and I will answer you. I'll tell you marvelous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own.' I am continually amazed at how much God wants to speak to us and communicate with us. God went to the garden of Eden to find Adam and Eve after they had partaken of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I don’t think he went only to reprimand them and deal out a harsh justice for their disobedience. Yes He had to do that because there are consequences for our sin. But I also believe there was a grieving in his heart for the companionship he had established with them in the cool of the evening, calling out to them…Where are you??? Adam, Eve, where are you???? He had been meeting with them in the cool of the evening everyday. Just to hang out and be with his creation. God wants to hang out with us. I believe one of the reasons God created man was to have fellowship with him… The Spirit of the Lord is calling to his Bride right now, “Come away with me….Come away with me, my beloved. He knows we need some time spent in the garden hidden away with Him. He wants to tell us something’s, and help us prepare for what is coming. Help me to bid your call, let not my sin stand between us, forgive and cleanse me, let not the cares of the world distract me , call me Father and draw me to your side where we can spend time together …In a garden.

For me time in a garden is pure relaxation. I love to inhale the smell of the earth on an early spring morning. To see new shoots poking out of the soil, buds swelling on the trees, cleaning out and organizing the garden shed in anticipation for the year ahead (I know that’s sic) and most of all that first flush of the roses and iris bursting in perfection. I love the first garden chore of cleaning up the soil from the last years debris, to discovering the earth underneath its winter coat is alive and brimming with life. It is all that dreaming of what is to come. It is down right addicting. I have to force myself to clean the house, do the laundry and pay attention to the rest of the world around me, because honestly, my soul is so stirred by this season called spring that I can’t stand to waste it on the mundane. I am starting a brand new garden this year…most likely my last garden. It is the smallest of all the gardens I have grown, but it will have a condensed infusion of the best parts of all my four previous gardens. I hope like my last garden, that this last leg of my life’s journey will also be a condensed infusion of the best; all that has been planned, prepared, sown, weeded, pruned, and harvested by the master gardener in the soil of my heart. I recently stunned myself, when I was putting on makeup the other day with my glasses on so I can actually see what I am putting on. I looked in the mirror and saw my wrinkles then smiled deep down to my toes. I have wrinkles and for the first time they make sense to me. I found out only a few weeks ago that in my fifty- first year I am going to be a first time grandmother. Yeah! Not as many first’s left as there use to be. Those wrinkles now just make me smile. I now feel I have a purpose to wear them proudly and a destiny to make them worthy of my face. The destiny of being a grandmother, it has overwhelmed me with joy. So while I will be digging around in my soil this spring, I will not only be contemplating my brand new garden and its conception and birth, but a much more eternal conception and birth, the one of my future grandchild.

For, lo, the winter is past; The rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; The time of the singing of the birds has come...