Saturday, April 30, 2011

New Hope in Dirt

I like this time of year. As the days start to get longer and the weather starts to warm I can't help myself and I must get out and play in the dirt. There's something about the smell of freshly turned warm earth, the feel of it sifting through my fingers, the hope of new beginnings that it brings. It's soothing to me. It rejuvenates my spirit. Digging around removing weeds, preparing the ground for new growth is like therapy. It reminds me that my life often needs the same things the earth does to be productive. I need to remove what's unnecessary and create fertile soil for new ideas to grow.

Sometimes when I'm digging around my mind works on things that are bothering me or problems I can't seem to find a solution to. Often times my mind just wanders and my focus shifts from the many distractions in my life to smaller things like the interesting shape of a flower just before it blooms, or the many segments of a fat earthworm and how it moves through the soil and knows how to get away from me without any eyes. Sometimes my heart hears the voice of my Creator telling me how special I am and how I might fit into his amazingly designed world.

Digging in the dirt, planting my garden is an act of faith. I put a seed in the ground. The sun warms it, the rain moistens it, the nutrients in the earth nourish it and I believe it will sprout and grow into something beautiful and wondrous without much help from me. Sometimes it's hard to have that faith when it's been some time and you still haven't seen a sprout, but eventually the miracle happens and one day....there it is!!

Digging in the dirt teaches me about life and faith. It reminds me how connected everything is. It reminds me of miracles and how things that we hope for happen in their own time. It reminds me to slow down and enjoy the beauty around me. And even after a long hard day of digging, weeding and planting I am always filled with a sense of peace and that all is right with the world.

I hope wherever you are you can get out and enjoy a renewing of your spirit by connecting with something living and wondrous that the Creator has made especially for you. If you find it digging in the dirt so much the better, but you may just find it in the unique design of a flower that by some miracle we don't understand and with no help from you, came up all on it's own to reveal it's beauty to the world and offer us hope.

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