Thoughts And A Few Prayers In The Garden
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I was out this afternoon working in the small kitchen flower border, which Agatha had said needed something cheery planted to welcome visitors. It’s a tiny spot with just room enough for a handful of plants, it’s the perfect spot for something showy and colorful to make people smile. I had been to the garden center earlier and picked out the most beautiful yellow daylily, a cheery coneflower, several old-fashioned pink Hollyhocks, and a baby Heavenly Blue morning glory and couldn’t wait to tuck them into their new home.
(thank you, sweet friends, for encouraging me to enjoy the garden more this summer, I’ve taken your good advice to heart in rather an alarmingly enthusiastic way! There’s another story waiting to be told, I arrived home with only room in the driver’s seat, my car literally looked like a rolling greenhouse, I’m not to be trusted when it comes to plants.)
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After unloading the car, I worked for a bit arranging the hollyhocks, all shades of pink and soft white, the lemon daylily, an unusual cheery yellow coneflower. The morning glory vine was trying his best to clamber his way up everything in sight and simply begging to get in into the ground sooner rather than later. I worked along smoothly, popping plants out of their pots and into the rich dark soil.
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It’s usually a simple matter of upending whatever plant I’m ready to place in its spot. Just give a firm thump on the bottom and out slides the root ball all ready to settle into its new home where it’s real growth could begin, free of the confines of the restrictive plastic pots. I reached for the lily and told her that she was going to be amazing next to the coneflower and those Hollyhocks. I turned her pot over and gave a thump and nothing happened. I thumped harder and shook the pretty flower, (who was probably thinking her small world was coming to an end) all to no avail. The lily was firmly stuck in her pot and obviously not thinking much of the idea of leaving what she thought was a perfectly acceptable home.
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Finally, realizing the lily wasn’t going to budge without reinforcements, I went and got a most unlikely gardening assistant from the garage, a rather ancient but most efficient-looking hammer. The poor lily surely must’ve been shocked when I started whacking away on the bottom of the pot, but sure enough, those roots began to loosen and she slowly slid out of that constricting, binding, even smothering plastic pot and into my gloved hands, indeed, her roots were much in need of more room to stretch and grow.
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Poor thing didn’t believe it at the time but better things were ahead for her. I quickly tucked her into the lovely cool soil where she could spread her roots and grow to beautiful maturity. I was right, she looked amazing next to the other flowers.
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Stories rattle around in my head at the most unlikely times and while I struggled to convince the lily that it truly was the very best thing to leave her confining dwelling place and trust herself to the gardener’s hands, I was thinking of a dear young friend and her recent struggles to leave what surely must have felt like a safe haven. But like the lily, the time had come to leave that temporary home where she found herself. She’d just gone through a rather cataclysmic change which I’m sure must have felt like a hammering of sorts, shaking her loose from everything she knew and was comfortable with.
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But I know that my prayers and the prayers of her sweet family and the others who love her and whose hearts ache for her, will be answered and that what she thought was a disappointing and sad change of direction was instead God’s working out His best for her life.
Be encouraged my dear young friend, God loves you and all will be well. You can trust the heavenly Gardener, though He sometimes seems to allow our small worlds to be turned upside down, there are wonderful opportunities ahead for you, just spread your roots deep and begin to grow…
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Poor Agatha, she's had the sometimes not so enjoyable job of helping us develop new products for the company named in her honor.SHE HAS NOT BEEN A FAN.The problem is, as someone with rather a large amount of experience regarding dog grooming (owner of a grooming shop/boarding kennel, veterinary technician, etc), I decided a few years ago that there simply had to be a better dog shampoo available.It wasn't too much to ask really.A shampoo that smelled fabulous (and didn't bother my allergies). A shampoo that lathered richly (without nasty sulfates) and left doggie fur lightly fragrant and super clean.A shampoo that was truly safe and natural, as organically sourced as possible, gentle on the eyes. A shampoo that not only cleansed, but nourished coat and skin. A shampoo that removed dander and amazingly, even helped reduce shedding!
Alas, it took dozens of failed attempts on this journey to an absolutely fantastic dog shampoo solution.First I tried searching the internet. I spent hours reading the reviews of this or that bubbly offering. I stayed up late at night, scanning the vast array of dog shampoos available to the pet owner. I ordered so many bottles of shampoo Agatha began to think we were opening our own pet apothecary,,, (little did she know).The UPS guy must have wearied of driving up our long farmhouse lane. Of carrying box after box of heavy cartons up into my kitchen.
I would open those cartons, one by one, and begin the process of evaluating the pros and cons of each.The criteria were strict, upon opening the bottle, first of all, the fragrance had to be fabulous AND not bother my allergies.You'd be amazed at how many failed even that first simple test. The high hopes that I had for each new candidate were often dashed the moment the lid came off the trendy looking bottle.Why on earth would I want my dog to smell like a pumpkin latte? If just the first whiff made me cringe, why bother to douse my pet in the smelly stuff?I developed a rather large carton of bottles to donate & spent a small fortune only to find that not a single one of those products which promised the moon & stars was more than mediocre at best.Some of them required an enormous amount of shampoo "pour a couple of palmfuls on your dog's coat to start" (this one had over a hundred 5 Star Amazon reviews!). Even that enormous amount of shampoo didn't clean very well and required so much rinsing that it quickly went to the reject bin.(Agatha was relieved when that one went by the wayside!)
