Thankfulness - A Garden Within

There is a garden in my soul that I am learning to cultivate. The garden sits high upon a cliff that looks out over the sea. The garden, for many years has been somewhat left unattended. Oh, there have been sections here and there that have been well tended and are growing, but most the time it's just a flower or bush that blooms here and there.

Over that last few year I have realized that if I can cultivate a place in my soul that is peaceful and well toiled then my outer world would be more peaceful. To create that inner peacefulness though takes purposeful discipline. It takes making choices to spend time with my Father Gardener has we till the ground and fertilize the soil. We also plant, water, pull weeds and then we enjoy the beauty together. It's a daily process.

I want to cultivate a garden that I perpetually live in regardless of what is going on around me. In order to live out of a peacefulness within though it means that I have made daily choices to cultivate my relationship with God.

But honestly while this is what I desire my flesh so often fights against the desire to tend the garden of my soul. So it doesn't come easily it's something that I must fight for, guard and protect. The time spent developing my relationship with God must be a daily choice I make. It must not be based on feelings, it's something I must choose to do. If left unattended the soil of my garden will grow hard and nothing will grow but weeds. Then when the world around me grows stressful there will be nothing to draw upon for my garden will no longer be a place of beauty and rest, but of desolation.

I am thankful that it is not up to me to toil the garden alone, my Gardner joins me daily as we walk through the garden of my soul and smell the flowers. We stop from time to time to discuss the areas that I've allowed weeds to grow and He reminds me of the necessary process of uprooting those particular weeds. As we tend the garden together our relatonship grows sweeter. From time to time we go and sit on the bench that looks out over the sea. While we sit there and rest I listen to Him as He shares His heart with me.

Oh the sweet beauty of a garden that is well tended by me and my Gardener.