"To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow"-Audrey Hepburn

Ecclesiastes 3:1-3(ESV) For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
³ a time to kill, and a time to heal;a time to break down, and a time to build up;


I have a lot of hobbies...a lot!! So many in fact, that when I come home its almost overwhelming trying to decide what project I should work on.  My therapist calls it avoidant coping because I don't always address how I am truly feeling.  I call it survival.  


One of my hobbies is gardening.  For me, gardening is an entirely spiritual process making me keenly aware of the seasons and the circle of life.  In the winter I pour over my seed catalogs getting excited by all of the pretty pictures of the beautiful vegetables.  Then in the spring I prepare the soil and plant my tiny seeds with great anticipation of the delicious vegetables that they are to become.  By the summer I may be able to harvest and enjoy my vegetables or I might be sorely disappointed if my plants get overtaken by bugs, disease, or they just don't make it for some unknown reason.  By late summer my garden beds usually get so over grown and full of weeds it looks like a miniature jungle. For the fall, everything has either died or is not producing any fruit so I pull everything out and into the compost pile it goes.  

To me the compost pile is where the miracle of gardening really happens, no matter what mistakes I have made, no matter what diseases or pests have invaded my plants, and no matter what disappointments in what should have been it all gets mixed into the compost pile to give me hope for next season.  

This finished compost, made from my triumphs and mistakes from last season, will serve as a new beginning for my seeds of tomorrow.  In Jesus Name,