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Respecting The Foundation
by Lynn Wilson
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It has always been a comfort to me to think about God
choosing a garden in which to place His newly created human life. There is
much to learn in a garden! Several times during every day, I find myself drawn
out into my own flower garden, which has become a respite from the cares of
life. Little by little, I merge with the garden, lost in thought as I move
around the patchwork of pinks, lavenders, and blues on a background of
soothing green--first to smell, then to touch, and then to tend. I cannot help
myself. It may sound silly, but an intuitive sort of thought process takes
place for me in the garden. I do not stand within the camp of people who talk
to plants. To the contrary, I feel that plants have more worthy things to say
to me than I have to say to them! My mind listens for answers, sometimes to
questions that I did not even realize I had. This spring has been an
especially helpful one, as I worked out a resolution to a problem with one of
my children.
About 4 years ago, I planted a Lady Banks rose to grow
on a wooden arbor at the entrance to my front yard. Little did I know that the
Lady Banks is as prolific and hardy as roses come. The Lady Banks quickly
settled in and took off growing. It was nothing short of "dreamy" for me to
think ahead to spring, and the white, wooden arbor in my front yard being
covered by massive amounts of tiny white blooms amid the healthy foliage that
was weaving in and out of the lattice sides of my arbor. I was dazzled by the
fact that this year was promising to be the showiest year ever, with Lady
Banks' long, bud-covered branches arched into the sky and then down, even
sweeping the ground in some places! In fact, I was so enchanted with the
blooming spectacle, I was oblivious to the increasingly burdened state that
the wooden arbor was in! I guess I did not realize how much bigger my Lady
Banks had gotten during the previous growing season--sort of how we humans
sometimes don't see a problem getting bigger and bigger until it borders on
enormous and threatens to consume us!
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One day while out in my garden (as usual, standing near
the Lady Banks and looking up), my husband pleasantly surprised me by stepping
out to join me. It's funny how we assume we know what others are thinking, and
sometimes we are extremely off-base in our guessing. I was waiting for the
inevitable compliment from my husband about my Lady Banks rose, when he
stunned me with the comment that the rose needed pruning (now) or I
would lose the rose completely and the arbor with it!! The sheer weight of all
those branches was heavily testing our old arbor. My husband walked through
the garden with me, complimenting many things besides the Lady Banks. Looking
from two different perspectives, my husband and I were seeing two very
different things when we looked at the Lady Banks. I was looking at sheer
physical beauty. My husband was looking at long-term consequences. I sighed as
my husband left me to go back inside. I would prune the next day.
The lesson I took from this was a good one. We had been
having trouble with one of our children lately in the area of obedience and
gratitude. I won't say which child--they deserve their privacy--but as I
pruned that rose, I thought long and hard about what it was my child needed to
be able to live within the boundaries that were truly good for him. As a mom,
I tend to shield and protect and see my children only through the eyes of
adoration--just as I was looking at my Lady Banks. Where this particular son
was concerned, I had been accepting superficial "tokens" from him that he was
repentant and corrected, when really there was some deeper pruning that needed
to be taking place! I realized that while my husband oftentimes looks ahead to
the fruit that will be born of current habits being formed, my motherly
instinct to intervene, question, and protect has the potential to blind me to
weightier matters. In the deeper part of my heart, I must admit that I
appreciate the noble character which may be worked into children who must be
accountable to a higher power than themselves. I also know that foundation
means everything. Just as the Lady Banks needed the very arbor it was
threatening to tear down, my son needed to maintain a respectful, healthy tie
to the foundation that was growing him into a fine young man.
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I will close by saying that this little garden story is
in no way meant to tell you how or when to discipline. It is merely to remind
you to pay attention to the direction in which your little ones are growing.
It is to remind you to pay attention to well-trusted sources who offer you an
insight as to what things look like from their point of view. It is to
remind you to keep a check on the soil that your children are taking root in!
A garden growing lustily out of its boundaries is pretty for a time--but only
until the pleasant order of the garden is completely hidden and the plants
have lost their way in weeds, which can happen; and, order can be hard
to restore. Trust me! |
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Lynn Wilson, mom to four delightful (and perhaps challenging) children, is the
eclectic and nature-loving owner of
The Healthy Homeschool . She welcomes you to visit her any time at
her website!
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