Today was a beautiful day in so many ways. It was my baby’s 34th birthday. I’m getting old and he’s getting older. That little 4 pound, emergency C-section baby, is a lumberjack of a man now. Hard to believe 34 years have passed since his birth. And where did they go?

One of my cousins stopped by today and we sat on the porch and had a nice long visit. When you’re sitting around with folks you love time moves swiftly. We love to talk about all the fun we had with our cousins at our Grandmother’s house. He lives there now with his cat. While we were visiting, my nephew and his friend came by and washed my Tahoe. His mother volunteered him to wash it and they really scrubbed it. They did it cheerfully and the washing only cost me two Dr. Peppers! Thank you so much nephew and friend. Bertha appreciates it and so do I.

I sat on the porch most of the day today. A nice breeze blew off and on and rattled the wind chimes and kept the porch from getting too hot. I ate my breakfast watching the birds. The sky was summer blue, the sun a warm yellow, and the clouds a bright white. After supper I took Penelope for a walk and watched the artistry of the sunset. As I watched, a wildfire of orange burned bright on the horizon, the flames of color filtering through the old oak and magnolia branches, turning golden as the sun rolled down the horizon.

As the sun went to bed, Mother Nature was painting the surrounding clouds in the most beautiful pale colors of purple. I looked up the names and shades of Crayola purple crayons and Mother Nature must have been inspired by purple flower petals. I watched her watercolor palette of orchid, wisteria, periwinkle, violet, and lavender wash over the clouds, the colors pale and soft, so pretty in the twilight of the day. I tried to capture the clouds with a photo but the colors were so beautifully fleeting. Some afternoons you look away for a second and you’ll miss the magnificence of the sunset pageant.

I think I’ve used this quote before but it just fits perfectly with today. “Let us be grateful to people who make us happy. They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom,” Marcel Proust. We all have people who make us happy in different ways and most of us never thank them for their rays of sunshine. Our gardeners, people who make us happy, can pull up the weeds of unhappiness and bring sunshine on a cloudy day. I think most relationships have a gardener and a flower, a lover and a beloved. The gardener is supportive and nurturing and the flower needs the gardeners expertise to bloom and grow.

God is our gardener, too, removing negative things in our lives, shaping us and encouraging us to put down strong roots of faith, to open our hearts to his teachings. John 15:1-2 reads, “I am the true vine, and my father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away; and every branch that bears fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” We are all branches connected to God and to bear good fruit in our lives we have to stay connected to God through our prayers.

God gives us a choice, a life of weeds or a life with a bountiful harvest of faith.

“Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God.” — Thomas Jefferson