REFLECTIONS

Season in the Garden

Summertime often found me as a young boy playing in Munna’s garden. The large area offered an enchanting place for me to play among the numerous flower beds each bounded by low cut hedges. I would run up and down the paths that separated the beds, hiding behind foliage of varying heights and colors while chasing whatever adventure had captured my imagination at the time. Back then the beauty my grandmother planted and nurtured went unappreciated in favor of the games I played.

The memories of Munna’s garden were enlivened by time in another garden a few years ago. Flowering plants accented by vintage olive trees bordered the paths wandering through it. Two thousand years have passed since Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, yet year after year and season after season trees still grow to produce their fruit, and flowers still bloom painting their vibrant colors on the canvas of God’s creation.

Today as I recall my time in those gardens and the array of flowering colors growing there, I realize that it took the plants together to make the place a garden. A single flower alone could not. Yet each flower had its place; and each served its own good purpose, some to find their way as bouquets to brighten a dinner table or to lift the spirits in someone’s hospital room, while others enter the work place sprinkling their rainbow of colors in ways that enlighten the lives in other meaningful ways. In much the same way the Church is a garden too.

The Church is like other gardens except the flowers growing there are people. All walks of life come together in a kaleidoscope of variety, each uniquely blessed with gifts like no one else. People carrying the banner of Jesus Christ are the colorful blooms. Together they become a garden when a single flower cannot. Yet each flower has a purpose of its own—to bear good fruit, fruit that will last. (John 15:16)

All of us today have been born for a season in the garden we call Earth. Together we can form a garden to reveal the beauty and love of Jesus Christ to the world. But a season in the garden is not the only reason God placed us here. God planted you and me to make a difference in the lives of others, whether as part of a bouquet to brighten a spirit, or to offer our own unique form of nourishment to someone’s soul. Those whose lives we touch during our season in the garden will become next season’s colorful blooms. And they will be called next to paint their vibrant colors on the canvas of God’s creation.

You are the light of the world,

Richard +

www.reflectingthesavior.org.

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