Celebrating God’s Creation – In the Garden

I have always really wanted to be a gardener. There’s something about celebrating God’s creation in a garden that brings me joy and excitement. There’s just one problem.

I am a terrible gardener.

Trying so hard

Every year as spring begins to show herself, I begin to daydream. I dream about potted plants on our patio. Vegetable planters and flowers blooming.

And almost every year, I try. I spend more money than I should, I read all the blogs that I can. I try. And nothing survives my herbicidal tendancies.

Like forgetting to water, or not exactly knowing how to prune. Or the occasional issue where I revel in creation, but also revel in my new spray accessory on my hose and everything drowns.

I don’t mean for any of this to happen. I try, and I try hard. But usually nothing makes it past a few months.

A few years ago my mom brought me some filled planters with plants that survived the season. I was overjoyed. My husband helped me to water them, and even this spring the lilies still bloomed.

Until it got hot. And now they too, have gone the way of so many of my plants. I am hopeful that God’s creation can endure my trying, and maybe next spring I’ll be surprised by blooming flowers again.

Small Seeds growing

So as part of my dreaming, of my joy for God’s creation, this spring our Small Seeds program helped our kiddos to plant in the flowerbeds behind the church. I figured it would be better to have a few plants than the weeds that regularly over grew there.

Little did I know, in our haphazard and well-intentioned planting, so much would grow. Honestly most of the seeds were left over from a planting party the church had hosted a few weeks earlier. I thought, “Well if something grows great, and if not, that’s fine too.”

But God’s creation endures, grows, and thrives. It is a wild forest of sunflowers, filled with hiding pumpkins and squash. Most of the tomatoes are ready to harvest. And God reminds me once again how amazing this creation really is.

What are ways you celebrate God’s creation? How do gardens, forests, and rivers in our area remind us of God’s grace in the world?

Pastor Megan