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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Shhh. (02/18/10)
The Screams from my Garden

I love gardening, it’s only late February here in Port Angeles Washington and the past several days have been sunny and in the mid fifties.... I want to get out and plant all the new plants that I can! I know it’s too early to go out and do that because it could freeze into late April, even though this has been the warmest January on record for Western Washington.

I am itching to get out in my beginning stages of a tropical island in the sea of grass. It is my 13 year old son’s idea to make a tropical island. My husband and I just got married in July of last year and my son and I along with a couple hundred potted plants moved out of our apartment in the Seattle area to Port Angeles and into my husband’s house. The huge yard has just been calling me to have fun with all my ideas and dreams for a garden.

My first dream to fulfill is the tropical Island filling it with flowers, palm trees, fruits and even some nuts. I like to use my garden for beauty and bounty. But it’s too cold to do more than heap up some dirt right now. So I have planted myself in the sun to stay warm and thrust my garden tools into the soil to pull weeds, from the looks of it I will be pulling weeds for a few weeks to get rid of them all.

Yesterday I completed pulling weeds in one garden area and started a very large one that has not been weeded in years! With this being the first time in months since I have done any yard work I can hear the garden screaming at me… can you hear it? If you were close you would see it, yes you can see when a garden has been screaming! It’s visible in the gardener, the hunch in the back, the slow movements, the hesitancy as they go to bend over.

That garden is screaming through my muscles it’s proclaiming it’s been abandoned and lonely demanding attention like a hungry newborn crying for some milk. My newly inherited garden is screaming like it hasn’t eaten in a couple of days! I turn to the left and it screams I need my weeds pulled, I turn to my right and it cries I need fertilizer, I bend down and it wails I need aeration! As I reach up it begs for beautiful flowers, then as I squat it whispers, “Will you love me? I need someone to love me and take care of me, someone that will fill me with the beauty I know I can possess.”

It’s my garden now, for I have chosen to love it, to fertilize it, to aerate it, to fill it with beautiful flowers, and yes I will even weed it. I have chosen to love it and take care of it following the example of how our loving Heavenly Father the Master Gardener takes care of me. When I need sin removed, He forgives me. When I need fertilizer he nourishes my soul with His word. When I need aeration he lifts my soul with fellowship in the body of Christ. When I need flowers He fills my life with the abundance of the fruits of His Spirit. And then when I whisper in pain or disappointment through prayer, He fills my life with the depths of His abiding love, grace, mercy and consuming peace.

The Master Gardener fills my life with peace, He does not beckon me to be quiet or shush my screams. My garden may be screaming at me through my sore muscles and I can’t help but listen as I reach for yet another weed. But, I smile as I retreat into my garden as I am enveloped in the peace God has filled my soul with, there could be no greater beauty than the flowers of joy God plants in our lives.
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Member Comments
Member
Date
AnneRene' Capp
02/27/10
Your title grabbed me to read your article, first!

Great analogy with your garden. I was very touched.
Judy Wood
02/28/10
I like the comparison of you choosing to care for your garden and your heavenly Father as the master gardener caring for your soul. The title does make you wonder what you've written.
Jan Ackerson
03/03/10
Awesome title that really grabbed my attention.

Two suggestions: avoid the use of exclamation points in narrative; they're best reserved for dialog. And be careful of comma splices and run-on sentences.

Your passion for your garden really shines through in this pleasant narrative.