The Gardener…

Some things in life can make you sit in wonder and disillusion.

I’ve been having those moments a lot lately. I am working outside doing landscaping work this summer, and I’m surrounded by trees, flowers, grass and other things pertaining to nature. You never look and analyze at something like blades of grass or tree blossoms on a tree until you spend eight hours a day around them.

This is less of a real story. More of a story from an observation I made.

The Gardener

The Crepe Myrtle sits amongst a thatch of juniper bushes. It is not a particularly gorgeous arrangement of flora, but it serves it’s purpose and creates a green area to off set the dry landscape around them. She abides in commonplace and the world cannot see her true beauty yet because her day has not come yet.

She has buds that are just screaming to bloom and new growth that gives way to her true beauty, but she has been neglected and the overgrowth of previous years and dead branches covers up her beauty and splendor.

Some of her buds try to bloom, but are blocked out by all of her fruitless branches slowly killing and taking over. The light is blocked out and she begins to feel the slow cold of her demise, with none to enjoy her last breathes of splendor.

But somehow the dead branches and fruitless growth begins to be pruned away. With each clip she feels her health and spirit begin to grow. A gardener has began to prune away at her branches.

He snips and clips away at the dead lifeless parts of her and opens up areas of her existence that she had never seen before. Light began to shine through. The gardener keeps working away at her cutting parts of her that aren’t necessary. He works hard and sweat rolls of his brow and drips to round below where her roots have become exposed.

The gardener smiles to find new parts of The Crepe Myrtle exposed to the sun and warmth of the Summer day. He continues his work without break and without hesitation. She worries when parts of her branches that to her seemed fine end up being clipped too.

She still sits among the juniper bushes with her buds waiting to bloom, and waiting for the world to see her beauty.

The next day she still has not bloomed, but the gardener comes and waters her roots and gives them a nice cool on her feet to quench her thirst during the hot summer day. She is still confused why no one will come and see her splendor. The gardener covers her roots with mulch to keep them moist and cool during the day.

She sits all day and wonders why no one will come see how beautiful she is. This gardener keeps coming each day and clips away the dead parts and fruitless things about her. She wonders why no one will look at her splendor.

One morning as the sun begins to rise she sees someone on the horizon, but cannot make out who it is. She rustles with excitement in the breeze hoping and wishing it is someone to see her splendor.

The silhouette of the person in the distance becomes clear that it is the gardener, but this time he doesn’t have any tools in his hand. He came there with one thing… his eyes. So he could see how beautiful she truly was.

As the breeze blows through her branches and moves her leaves and pink-reddish blossoms she realizes that there was someone there all along to take care of her and look back and love everything about her in a way that no one else in the world could. She finally found someone was admiring her splendor all along… The Gardener.

…

We often get caught up in ourselves so much that we can’t see the people around us that have been there the entire time helping us along. Remember to look back and see who’s helped you get to where you are now. Sometimes we forget about those people.

There is one Eternal Gardener that will prune, feed and provide for us but all we have to do is allow this “gardener” into our lives. All he want is to love and give to those that will receive him. If we accept this gardener’s gift of sacrifice for our lives then we too can be held in splendor and will continue to bear fruit and live forever.

This gardener’s name is Jesus Christ.