Inch by Inch and Row by Row

I have been in the process of planting my garden the past week and a half.

Today I planted the corn and sunflowers . . .

3 rows, 100 feet each, every four inches.

And as I sowed my seeds, my swollen belly bent over the black earth, the sun hot on my back and burning my arms, I sang to myself to keep myself from giving up –

“Inch by inch, and row by row
Heaven bless these seeds I sow
Heaven warm them from below
‘Til the rain comes tumbling down”

Later I went out to get more flower seeds to add to my zinnias this year. As I drove, I thought about creation and destruction . . .

In The Garden

Creating a garden, more than anything, takes time and diligence. Even when I’m sooo tired, I must keep going, getting those little plants or seeds into the ground, if the garden will ever be created.

But the destruction of the garden – all those months of hard work, in bed after bed, can be destroyed in one afternoon of determined pulling, raking and digging.

In My Life

Creating the life that I want to live seems to take time and diligence too. Becoming the person I want to be in my talents, skills and capabilities, is often more daunting than planting the garden. I must remind, encourage, and continue to try as I eek out little moments where I become better than I was before. Often this creation process is too subtle to notice in the day to day, but over the years I am beginning to recognize my life moving forward.

And how simple it would be to destroy those ideals with excuses, laziness or poor choices. I have to remember not to waste this life I have been given!

In the Children

My thoughts always circle back to the children when I am thinking about the garden. Because they are the little things I’m trying to encourage to grow most of all. With kind words, and diligent cultivation, I believe I can help them bloom into amazing individuals.

But today I remembered how easy little things are to destroy – a bad mood, a rage of temper, I can quickly undo all the work I’ve done before. I must be so careful with these little things, singing to them as they grow strong and sure.

In the Spirit

And thus I concluded it is with our spirits – that growing close to Heavenly Father, growing close to the Spirit, is something that requires diligence and time; a consistency in making righteous choices, a consistency in being willing to make righteous choices. But our communion with the Spirit is always a gentle one. And choosing to withdraw from the spirit through actions or attitudes, can destroy so quickly what has taken so much time to build. And you can’t just go back to how things were before – you have to start at the beginning again – a new “spring” to plant and sow and build.

So it seemed to me today to be an eternal truth: that creation takes time. It takes effort and diligence and patience. But destruction, of our temporal, physical, emotional or spiritual lives, can be as swift as only a moment.

 
 
You can listen to “The Garden Song” – sung by Peter, Paul and Mary, and watch some guy’s cute puppy. It was the only video of this song I could find 😀