Spring Cleaning

Thank you Thank you Thank you Dear Lord,

Thank you for this beautiful day!  I wore short sleeves!  I wore shorts!  It was WARM!!! So I thought I would clean out my gardens for a little spring cleaning.

I started with the basil patch.  Well, it used to be a basil patch.  At the moment it looks like a rectangle of dirt surrounded by concrete with dried out twigs sticking out.  As I pulled out the old stems, I could smell a hint of basil, reminding me of the lively stalks of leaves that once grew from these roots.  They flavored our food, and scented our comings and goings, as the patch is right outside our front door.  What a great memory.  The basil is dead now, and is being removed for a fresh new batch of plants.  I have the soil all cleared of what "used to be" and prepared for "what is coming next". Lent is the time I need to do the same with my soul.

Then I started removing the dried flowers from last year.  To be honest, they're quite beautiful the way they are.  They are dainty, brown and so dry that the blooms burst into an explosion of seeds when I touch it.  As I remove these beautiful old flowers, I find below them the bright green of the new leaves.  They are the fulfillment of the promise of new flowers.  Their roots run deep, and never die.  They return anew each year, but I must be willing to remove the old to make room for the new growth.

The new growth gets in the way of my raking under the holly bushes.  There are already so many new branches, bright green and full of hope.  They hide the "stuff" that has blown under them, but I want to clear it out to make the fertile soil more accessible.  I rake and struggle, and out comes a layer of old leaves.  I rake and battle the new branches out of the way, and my rake pulls out a load of leaves, baseballs, and old, dead iris stems. I had no idea a baseball was in there, and I had COMPLETELY forgotten that irises were back there.  Who knew?  As I clear the old debris, I can see the tender green shoots that are beginning to pop out of the soil, promising new flowers soon.

This reminds me SO MUCH of my need to really clean out the junk in my heart and in my life.  And once I clean it out, go back and rake up another batch until the stuff that's been concealed is revealed and removed, and only the fertile soil remains.

Soil contains the promise of growth and beauty.  So does my soul. Thank you for being close to both today!            

Love,

Me