Relationships

“To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance.”   Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4 (NKJV)

If you have not noticed by now, most of my posts include pictures of beautiful flowers. I’ve loved flowers most of my life. I can remember as a little girl sitting on my Grandma Rosena’s porch looking at the flowers. They started off fluffy and white then turned yellow. I later discovered they were weeds, Dandelions to be exact. Weeds are often a sign that something is wrong in the soil, such as over-acidity or uneven watering. As much as I love flowers, I quickly discovered when I built my home over 20 years ago that I did not have a green thumb. After about 10 years of trying (and failing) to maintain a small flower bed, I decided to dig up my day lilies, which I’d heard were one of the easiest flowers to maintain. That was not the case for me, so I ended up replacing the lilies with mulch. It eventually got so bad that I dug up the bushes as well. I sat staring at a blank canvas for many, many years. I loved to look at my neighbors’ yards and I wished I had their green thumbs.

The more I live, I ofttimes find myself in complicated relationships. And in thinking of the garden analogy, I started thinking about who are flowers in my life and who are dandelions? Who is your dandelion? Or are YOU the dandelion? Some relationships will be like a rose, but even a rose has thorns that need to be cut. Even beautiful hydrangeas require lots of watering and intentionality. Both are lovely but both require different levels of attention.

This summer, I took a stab at creating a new garden. I had help from a local company that specializes in turning your weeds into a beautiful garden. It’s a process but as I see my beautiful pink and blue hydrangeas take bloom, even in early fall, it excites me to the very core. I talk to them as I water them, and I sit outside just to take in their beauty. I am going to be incredibly sad when they die but the professional told me that they will leave for a small season but will come back! In the back of my mind I said, “Well, if they die, I’m definitely going to get new ones.” Flowers are like relationships to me. Some may die, but new ones will come. I am only responsible for doing my part. Sometimes your relationships are weeds but it takes a while to realize it. You must get to the root of why they are not blossoming as expected. You may need help and guidance with any type of relationship, whether it’s friendship, marriage, children, siblings, etc. You don’t have to always run away from something you love but, just like taking care of a garden, you have to be intentional about caring for it by learning how it grows and what could destroy it.

Use the weeds in your garden to identify any problems in the soil that can easily be fixed. Sometimes it’s worth taking another stab at it instead of saying you will never have relationships because one (or some) died off. In God’s perfect timing, He brings life into those seeds of investment and they burst forth from the ground in such abundance, more than you can imagine!

Heavenly Father, I am so in awe of Your love! You strategically built us to have relationships, help us to nurture them, care for them, water them, speak life into them and learn from them. Amen