Overflowing flowerbed of sweetpeas to 4 puny starts.
Last year the sweet peas were massive! Such a luxurious bed of multi-colored flowers filled the side of the porch and to the height of 5 feet! I really enjoyed them. Thinking that they would
re-seed themselves even more beautiful this year, I eagerly watched for starts to appear. And I watched and I watched. For several months. Hmmm. This is all that showed up this year. What a disappointment!
The Lord is reminding me to take joy and pleasure TODAY in His gifts. Tomorrow may not come or it might be different. If I live in "the tomorrow", I miss out on "the today". Even though we are to plan and wisely save for the future, the line is crossed when we constantly are looking for better and bigger and more and more. It does seem to me that we miss out on a lot of pleasures and a lot of opportunities for praise when we do this. Today it is the will of our Lord Jesus for us to be grateful and thankful. I Thessalonians 5:18, "In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus in you." Let us not miss the joy prepared for us today while we are wishing for tomorrow's bigger joys.
Such a simple lesson that we skip over, isn't it? The sweet peas and other plants in our garden have shown me this same lesson year after year. One year has a bountiful crop of corn, but next year's is skimpy. I am focusing on gratefulness to God this summer, looking for small nuances of the meaning of living in joyous thanksgiving. This "sweet pea lesson" shows me to live in joy TODAY for joy is a "present" word. K.C.
