Tending the Garden of My Heart

A few years ago, it was an honor to host Christian author Paula Reinhart as keynote speaker at an annual women's event.  Paula is a seasoned writer, speaker, and counselor who focuses on helping women live fully in all God has for them.  I love her book, Strong-Women-Soft-Hearts and have shared it with many study groups and book clubs. In the book, Paula describes the heart as a garden: "The heart is something of a garden that requires tending. Many things might have occasion to grow there. A root of bitterness is so potent it will invade other people’s gardens and worst of all, it will choke the grace of God in my life. I will miss what I want most."

I don't have a green thumb, brown thumb nor the gift of gardening. For years, I have repeatedly planted,  watered and fertilized in attempts to grow plants, vegetables, shrubs, seedlings and trees with little success.  My sweet hubby has labored and salvaged my half-done gardening efforts for years. He is good with dirt!  I can report one rare and winning horticultural attempt in Kentucky with mint. Shortly after being planted, mint will flourish and propagate. It seems to thrive in any type of soil. In fact, our mint patch was so successful, Bob and I invited neighbors to cut as much as they wanted. There was plenty to share and the word spread quickly that the Battoe mint patch was open to the public.  In our native Kentucky, early May is the wonderful Derby season and that's when mint is a precious commodity! Southerners enjoy any number of mint garnished beverages, hot or cold. In fact, Kentucky is well-known worldwide for one particular mint drink!

Through experience, I learned that a fruitful, yielding mint garden can quickly evolve into an unruly, leggy, unsightly, invasive plot when left unattended.  Mint quickly spreads and can choke out and interfere with the growth and development of nearby healthy plants.  As with many plants, without pruning and attention,  mint often goes from lovely, enjoyable and useful to ugly, disruptive and undesirable.At the point of becoming a nuisance, one knows when it is clearly time to pull up the mint plant, roots and all. What is so amazing is that when a mint bed looks to be totally cleared, the aromatic, green sprouts will magically reappear the next spring!  It seems it is never totally eradicated. Thus, the whole mint life cycle begins again: sprouts-to-good-to-great-to excessive-to disgusting-to-rooted out. Mint needs ongoing attention to flourish as it begins as a blessing to enjoy and share then, left to its own means, evolves to a cursed, overbearing presence in the garden.  

My 💗 heart issues are much the same as mint in my garden. Seedling thoughts and motives that appear to be harmless -  even healthy  - sprout in my 💗 heart and quickly begin to grow. Desirable, benign traits can readily evolve into more serious, unacceptable behaviors that take root and spread. I know when it is time to weed my  💗 heart bed and  tend to unacceptable growth before such tendencies take over and choke out the goodness and grace of God.  I must be diligent, too, and regularly cut back, weed and uproot whatever tendency may separate me from Christ. Otherwise, the same issues sprout up again and again! 

For me, effective, productive  💗 heart gardening practices include worship, prayer and meditation, Bible study,  journaling (which includes blogging),  engaging in Christian community, fellowship and service Maybe I don't implement all these practices at the same time, albeit that would be wonderful. In truth, there are seasons when I focus on one or two habits more than others. I may pray more for a few weeks or journal daily for a time then lean into deep Bible study.  Time devoted to serving others may take precedence over study for a while. This regenerated blog is a perfect example of my waxing and waning spiritual disciplines. Oh, to balance an array of spiritual disciplines simultaneously. That would be holy all over, but I fear that is  a goal that may not be achieved until Glory Days!! So, I continue to do my best, give my best and all the while,  'tend' my  💗 heart garden.

I thank God for Bob who not only salvages and saves my feeble efforts of working with dirt, he also enhances my prayer life /our prayer life by our commitment to pray together everyday.   Early on in our marriage, we began a daily prayer time and I cherish the time spent in uniting our  💕💗💕 hearts in thought, word and need to the Lord.  This one consistent practice is now cherished, set apart, shared communion with each other and the central presence of God.  Praying together softens, refreshes and renews perspectives while sustaining our oneness with each other and oneness in Christ. Praying together permits us to taste the salt of one another's tears. Maybe we need to discuss how we will maintain a shared prayer time when Jesus takes one of us home to live with Him?! 
Ah, we need to pray about that!

John 15:2 says, "Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. " (ESV)  

Heavenly Father, There is none like You! You are the God who works miraculously & makes known Your strength among the peoples. Your power redeems us.  Praise You, Sovereign Lord.  In view of what you have done through Jesus Christ for us, we respond with attitudes & behaviors that say we belong to You. Your undeserved favor deems us the objects of an incomprehensible love that leaves us forever changed.  In the midst of this quiet, stay in place time, it is perfect timing to yield to Your pruning. Master Gardener, tend the gardens of our  💗💗💗 hearts and minds so that we are fruitful,  beautiful and useful in Your world. We are a  marked people with a remarkable God whose supernatural, all-powerful Spirit is poured over us & into us to create fruitful agents to make us one in the bond of Your love and grace.  Thank you for oneness in You and oneness with one another. Lord God, heal our land and heal our world. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.