Pretty morning with lots of birds and squirrels, delicate rain showers. So relaxing to sit in the swing and hear the rain drop symphony mixed with bird song melodies. I put my porch ferns and peace lilies on the sidewalk to enjoy the showers. The pansies are standing tall loving the cooling rain drops. The heat is really getting to the pansies, got to get some petunias for my urns soon. When the rain stopped and the sun burst brightly through the clouds, the earth was so beautifully alive in shades of green and the sky was dark blue, highlighted with fluffy white clouds. Rain always cleanses the earth and brings her colors out. Found this great quote today. “Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps the singing bird will come,” Lois Lowry. Love that!

Guess I can say I had a productive day. Waked up early and ate breakfast perched in the swing, sat on the porch till lunch, ate lunch perched in the swing, sat on the porch till supper, ate supper in the kitchen then back to the porch, perching in the swing waiting on the pageant of sunset. Life can’t get much better. I love the ease of retirement days.

The sun was glowing in golden light tonight as she rolled down the horizon. Her honey colored gown matched perfectly with Father Sky’s khaki linen suit. Mother Nature kept most of the pageant hidden but painted the nearby clouds magnificently with watercolors of pale pinks and blues. As the sun lay her head down and kissed the day goodnight, Mother Nature darkened the clouds’ colors with heavy brush strokes of purple and hot pink. The color was brief and glorious and the clouds quickly returned to their cigar smoke grays and whites. Father Sky waked the moon and the twinkling stars and they took their assigned places in the dark purple sky, waking the night and darkening the day.

I checked on my little garden plants before the day got dark and they’ve really grown since yesterday. The rain was liquid fertilizer today with the nitrogen it brought to the soil and the plant’s leaves. Anyone who grows things knows that a garden teaches patience as we check the plant each day for growth. We water the plants and fertilize them, watch for weeds and pull them out. We watch the plant’s bloom and produce vegetables. And we’re so proud when it’s harvest time. I was walking back to the porch and thought about how our life is like a garden and how patient God must be as he watches us grow and bloom in our faith.

Our dreams are the seeds in our garden of life. We learn how to plant our dreams, nourishing them as we age. We need to look to God for guidance in the growing seasons of our lives. Our dreams cannot flourish to fruition without faith in God. We know every seed of our dreams will not sprout. Some of our dreams will grow and we’ll experience their wonders. Other dreams will be choked out by the weeds of changes and storms that are normal parts of our everyday lives. When we put our faith and trust in God, he will tiller out the weeds and help us harvest our dreams.

To truly grow and flourish we have to stay connected to God. He is the master gardener.

“The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul.” — Alfred Austin