Garden = Life

A view of the yard/garden from the 2nd floor balcony.

In my new job as a home gardener I've been amazed to learn so much about life.  I thank God how He's used gardening to give me such fresh perspective.

For a visual of me working to maintain the green loveliness, here's a pic of me learning to trim hedges with my gardening mentor, Rogatien. 

Every since I started gardening a few weeks ago I've has so many thoughts I've wanted to share.  An example is today I was in absolute awe of certain trees.  I saw them in an entirely new light when I realized that some of them were the full-grown versions of my little shrubs.  I'll try to take "before and after" pics.  They were magnificent!!!  What immense vision I have for my shrubs now!  I can never see them the same way again, now that I've seen the fullness of what they can be.  How true is this in other areas of my/our lives? So often I see the little shrubs of people and situations around me, lacking perspective of how great they can become.  For example, my "shrub" tasks, monitoring projects and contracts, can be the beginnings of a program that will impact generations of Beninese.  My prayer is to seek and hold tight to vision of the great amidst the mundane. . .it will spur me to invest in and cultivate the shrubs in expectation of a larger outcome.  I've learned so much from gardening.

It's late so I can't write too much now but I wanted to throw the question out to you: How is tending a garden (or a plant) similar to the way God tends to and operates in  our lives?  I've reflected a lot on the process of weeding, trimming hedges, pest control and just gazing at the garden and how all of that carries so much meaning as a metaphor for the processes in our lives.  More on that later.

Meanwhile, some pics from the garden:

Wild beauty

I'm going to chronicle the development of this scrawny scrumptiousness as he develops. He had 2-3 small leaves just 2 weeks ago so there's already been huge development. Yes, he's a dude:)

I have very few flowers but I love taking pics of them so they have dominated this first batch of photos.  More to come.