The Miracle of Resurrection - in the Garden
I love to garden and I love plants - how they smell, how
they look, how they grow. I love the miracle of a seed’s transformation into a seedling and finally into a mature plant. When traveling, I always notice gardens, the smell of new plants, the pollen, the leaves - you get the picture.
There are so many spiritual lessons found in the garden. One of them is the miracle of resurrection - of life returning after supposed death. And all deaths are supposed, if we believe that death is the soul’s transition into a new form of life. Resurrection is a symbol for the new life and new beginnings we experience in our lives.
I’ve witnessed multiple resurrections in my garden this spring. I conducted a mental funeral for two of my beloved black foot daisies last fall - but they staged a spring reprise and are blooming with innocent abandon. Such a miracle! I thought sure that the scabiosas in the front were gonners this winter, but they’ve come back with mounds of blossoms this spring. A miracle! Even the white swan echinacea that I just knew had kicked the bucket have returned and are about to bloom. Miracles are all around me!
But the most amazing miracle of all happened yesterday afternoon. I found it around by the back door where I have a secret garden - a garden that doesn’t get much sunlight except for the harshest rays of a late summer afternoon, where nothin’ much grows. I had planted Confederate Jasmine there three or four years ago in a futile attempt to reproduce the smells of a California garden in Texas. What was I smokin’? To think that I could grow even a well-adapted version of the jasmine that perfumes just about every garden in California - well, only a crazed, cowboy-boot-wearin’ Texas gardener would think she could transplant California to Texas. I swear that Confederate Jasmine plant hasn’t produced even one green leaf in at least two years, but I found it yesterday not only growing up the trellis and onto the roof, but bedecked with small, lightly fragrant white blooms like Christmas lights on a garland of greenery. I wanted to throw a party then and there!
The lesson to me is obvious. When we think that the worst has happened, when it seems that death has surely triumphed over life, when the light at the end of the tunnel appears to recede rather than come nearer, God’s abundance and the miracle of new life whack us on the side of the head, fairly screaming, "Wake up and smell the jasmine!" Notice the new life, the small resurrections, that miraculously appear in your life. Are they new opportunities where you thought none would ever appear? An unexpected solution to a vexing problem? A phone call from a friend you’d lost contact with? New business opportunities that just drop in your lap? Appreciate them. Welcome them. Give thanks for the miracle of resurrection.
Thank you for reminding me to recognize and be grateful. After a difficult day, this was just what I needed. I can almost smell the jasmine and see the flowers. Hope after despair is more precious; light after darkness brighter. I really needed this reminder today. Thank you so much for helping me to see all that has been dropped into my lap. Too often, I am too blind to see and be grateful.
Add A Comment