Spiritual Gardening

Well with the warm weather I have been spending my time outside digging in the dirt, planting flowers and cleaning up the yard. It has been almost like a totally new thing for me because last year I hurt my shoulder and I was in so much pain for months that I did very little and couldn't enjoy much. So its like enjoying with a new body...sore muscles from working are minor after a long term severe kind of pain. I guess that's kind of how life works. If we let the difficulties flow through us and change us we are better after...but I must say that when things go on for months, years, decades and centuries...it gets a little hair raising!!! Like all the injustices in the world, the trafficking of children, world hunger, abuse of all kinds, illness, addictions, homelessness, lack of education and on the list goes...one wonders about God. As I get older I think that God is right there in the midst of all the varieties of suffering with each individual totally engaged with tears running down His face waiting for people in general to come to Him. He does not force Himself on us ever...that seems to be an absolute truth...we must want Him in our lives. He instead woes us through the struggles and joys of life to want Him, to want to engage with Him and learn about how much He loves us. This means that He will do absolutely anything to get our attention...and sometimes when I think He has my attention, He will show me new ways that I am ignoring Him. So it never ends...this opening up to more of God and then on the opposite side struggling to try to do it on my own. The tug and pull, the ebb and flow, the give and take...will I ever get it...probably not...because then I would probably grow independent of God.

There we have it folks torture mixed with great joy...enough to make me crazy!!! I giggle because one of the things my counselor has me working on is taking my walls down and being vulnerable with God and people...well this alone gets a little crazy...because when you change things inside yourself, things change outside of yourself because you can't help but affect those around you...just like throwing a stone in a pond and watching the ripples. The change I see the most of course is in me because I am the center of my universe, this is where you burst out laughing. Seriously it has scrambled my brains and at times I feel like I could pass out, I can hardly remember some things anymore and I feel like wearing a sign that says "NO I AM NOT DRUNK OR STONED, THANKS ANYWAYS" Who knew that having more of God would leave one on a continual high, or just a little spinny...and my mentors tell get used to this it never goes away. I am thinking its pretty wild!!