Ate breakfast on the porch ignoring Penelope’s begging for blueberries and pondered the meaning of life. No, I did not. Just kidding. I wondered why my yard was so quiet. There was no bird symphony playing. No wind chimes singing. Cardinals, downy wood peckers, chickadees, wrens, doves, and wood thrushes were scurrying around and eating at the feeders. Maybe Mother Nature is praying and the songbirds are respectfully quiet. Looking across the yard I saw the most beautiful male purple finch perched on one of the bird baths. Never seen a male with such coloring, his head the color of luscious ripe raspberries. His plumage, reddish purple, looked like he had been bathing in raspberry juice, dipping his head in a few more times to darken his feathers. He sat top of a bird feeder pole and struck a regal pose. Probably posturing for the females. Such a handsome fellow!

Late afternoon my nephew and his girlfriend dropped by to visit, just back from a ten day trip to Vienna, Austria and Budapest, Hungary. They had beautiful photos of the architecture from both countries. My nephew, recently graduated from Auburn University with a degree in genetics, was thrilled to have seen the writings and artifacts from the studies of Gregor Mendel, known as the father of genetics. Budapest is known as the “Pearl of the Danube” and its parliament building they had photographed at night was truly gorgeous. It’s such a wonder to look at the excitement and joy on this young man’s face, remembering him close to death in high school suffering from aplastic anemia. Many, many prayers and the medical miracle of a bone marrow transplant healed him. He’s headed off to medical school this fall. As Chief would say, “He’s a fine fella!”

Piddling around in my little garden this morning, I was thinking, we are the gardeners of our faith with God planting the seeds of his love in our heart. When I’m in the garden watering the vegetables, talking to the flowers, it’s so peaceful I can sense God’s presence. Frank Frankfort Moore writes, “I think that if ever a mortal heard the voice of God it would be in a garden at the cool of the day.”

I think we feel at home in our gardens because that’s where our faith began, in the Garden of Eden. We know we can’t have a garden without seeds and the seeds won’t grow without fertile soil and water and sun. Our Christian faith thrives the same as our gardens if we nurture our faith and tend it carefully. We have responsibilities in our gardens and we have responsibilities in our spiritual lives. We never plant the weeds but they always show up just like temptation. Through our prayers, our Bible studies, and following God’s teachings, we can keep the weeds from prospering and strangling our faith.

Jeremiah 17:7-8 reads, “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” The Lord tends to us and nurtures us and helps us grow our faith. His unconditional love is all we need to flourish and put down deep roots in his garden of Christianity. Our spiritual lives are like a plant, rooted in God, growing in his fertile soil, scattering our seeds of faith, bringing others into God’s garden.

I love this verse from Dorothy Frances Gurney’s poem God’s Garden. “The kiss of the sun for pardon, the song of the birds for mirth, one is nearer God’s heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth.” When we commit our hearts and lives to God, his grace showers us with love and the promise of eternal life in heaven. He will send the sun and the rain and keep the weeds from choking our faith. Everything we need is right in his hands, in his garden shed in heaven.

“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