//tending//

 

The canopy spread out above me, offering much needed comfort and coolness in the peek of the day. Covering like a leafy blanket, sheltering my being from the scorching rays of the afternoon sun. 

I sit and I swing. 

The gentle and steady creaking of a well used green hammock chair, rocking me to calm. Swaying away worries, stress and the anxious thoughts that have tried to take over the past few days. I breathe deep, reminding myself that all these lingering and uncomfortable things will one day pass. 

Just probably not in the timeline I want. 

The breeze refreshing, as a twittering orchestra of trills and birdsong echo across the gardens before and behind me. 

I’m hemmed in. 

This space has been all but forgotten until now. Three hanging pots still cling to their sturdy branches, but two of them have seen better days. 

They need some tending to. 

Come to think of it, I feel like those once flourishing vines in the pots, weary and worn from a lack of receiving something life giving. The anxieties of uncertainty have been creeping in, pulling the nutrients from my soil, my surroundings - and ultimately from me. Dryness has been trying to set in and I’m feeling parched, desiring an oasis overflowing. 

And as I sit here in this gift of a peaceful moment, my thoughts have begun to clear and I’m reminded of my own need for tending. Not the tending I’ve been forgetting for these sad looking plants cocooned in their pots, but the tending only the Lord can provide. 

The tending that I’ve been failing to see as my deepest need. 

So often, I fall into frustration with all the things I want to fix, cannot fix and then feel the failure of my inability to fix. When I am brought low enough to see clearly, my most crucial need is for the tending of another. 

It’s not something I can do for myself, but it is something I can receive. 

To release what I try to control and surrender all the unknown things to a God who delights in meeting me where I’m at. From frail and barely surviving to thriving and pouring over, is in the gentle hand of this Great Gardener. 

When I fail to return to the true vine - the true giver of life, I begin to wither under the pressures, the instability and the stresses of insurmountable surroundings that try to wear me down.

Cultivating life from the areas I thought had all but given up - He uproots the weeds of distress and lavishes his loving kindness on the areas we need it the most.