I spent this weekend working in my yard trying to get it ready for Winter. These chores come around every year as the sun hours grow shorter and the air gets cooler.
I see God’s handiwork in His marvelous creation. During the spring and summer, I welcome and admire the beauty that He has created to delight our eyes. The flowers are lovely and the animal life is so much fun to watch.
I guess, as Autumn rolls around, I sigh as I gaze around at drooping flowers and all the work to do to prepare them for Winter. I have to see my own failures as I try to care for my small part of the world.
As I stood immobilized by the immensity of the project before me, I imagine what my poor flowers must be saying. Just listen in with me:
“I sure wish she’d clean up this mess!” Rosie Bush huffed. “These creepy green arms are crawling all over me!”
“At least they aren’t putting holes in your leaves,” retorted Red Bush who was planted next to her.
“Yeah—well, they aren’t choking you to death,” hollered Peach Rose Bush from a few steps away. She sat a lot closer to the ground than her companions.
“Oh, quit your bellyaching,” drawled the Green Thing crawling along the ground around them. “The water is refreshing, there’s plenty of sun and it feels just right!”
“I’m sure our friends are uncomfortable,” put in the swaying Miss Lavender. “I’m sure I wouldn’t like my stems to be covered with anything but a breeze.” She shuddered.
“Yeah, it’s much nicer to be freeeeeeee,” giggled Columbine, bobbing her yellow heads, for she had several.
“At least you still have your colors,” wheezed poor Peony. Her once beautiful white and fushia colored petals were now just brown crisps at the base of her towering stalks. “She used to clean me up quite nicely after I passed my prime. But now I just sit in my dry petals. Oh, the shame of it!”
“At least you had petals,” exclaimed Rhody. “She doesn’t even know anything about taking care of me. If she’d just do a little pruning—yes, I know it could hurt a bit—but I’d show her a thing or two for it!”
“None of you are stuck with your faces constantly in the dirt like we are,” cried the Hollyhock Family. “We’d look quite lovely if she’d just put a stake or two in the ground and attached us to them. Nobody sees our pretty faces in the dirt.”
“The deer just eat me like salad,” Mr. Hosta lamented.
“Yes, me, too,” Miss Lily sighed.
“Be grateful. You both get to show something first,” said Tulip. “I get shorn off at the base as soon as I poke my tips out of the ground every spring.”
I stood and gazed at my flower garden, hands on hips and moaned. What a lot of work there was to do. Weeds were everywhere—the ground was just green with tall, short, and every kind and variety of unwanted foliage.
My poor flowers. I could just imagine what they would say if they could talk.
I’m sure I wouldn’t want to know!
“Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good” Genesis 1:31a.
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