A Season To Plant Flowers

I don't know why, but I've been dying to plant flowers and tend plants of my own probably since moving away from home for the first time.  That was nearly six years ago (oh my goodness, was it really that long ago?!).  During those six years, I lived in eight different houses and never once did I ever plant flowers.  Therefore, you can only guess my excitement when I saw the vacant flowerbed outside the front door of Jon and my home when we first moved in.  It meant I was finally going to get to plant flowers.

So that's what I did over May long weekend.  I planted flowers.  And it was so delightful.

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Not my flowers.

I got to dig and water, pull weeds and add luscious potting soil; I got wet from all the watering and I got dirt under all my finger nails.  My shorts got stained and my shoes got dirty.  I also got to smell the rich scent of my precious new flowers and that of my neighbour smoking weed in front of the townhouse just next to mine.  And then I got to eavesdrop on her loud and indiscreet phone conversation with whoever was selling her the wonderful "herbs" she was inhaling.  But I didn't mind, cause I was planting flowers.  And I felt so happy and carefree and relaxed from planting flowers... or wait a minute... no, it was from planting flowers.

Anyways, while I was doing all this fun work I remembered something from my younger days that really struck me.  It was a conversation my mom had with a young mother in our church that I just happened to be standing in on.  They spoke about her cute little boys, about her cute little house, and all the cute little projects she wished that she could be doing.

"What I really want to do is to build window boxes and install them under the windows on my front porch.  Then I could plant flowers in them.  I wish I had the time to do that."

Before either my mom or I could begin extending sympathy to her lack of time or agreeing with her about how nice it would be if she could do that project, she let out a joyful sigh and said:

Oh well, there's a season for everything right?

I now know she was referring to a scripture in the bible.  A passage I probably never would have taken the time to read or ponder if I hadn't seen her putting it in to action.  The actual verse goes:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven

How often in life do we get angry, frustrated, upset, or annoyed that something isn't happening exactly when we want it to?  How often do we wish that the time when we could finally do this or that came sooner?  How often do we let certain seasons of our life pass us by because we're too busy wishing that the next season would just hurry up already?  I'm certainly guilty of this.  Very guilty.

Our lives are so much like the seasons of the year.  Although we have the power to make important choices and dictate our paths, there are a great deal of things that we have absolutely NO control over.  We could make ourselves blue in the face wishing for it to snow enough in July for us to go snowboarding and it still wouldn't change anything.  To every thing, even life, there is a season.  The season for me to be able to plant my very own flowers finally came last weekend.  The season where I get to move to my own house with a bigger garden free from the aroma of burning "herbs" will come later.  Yes, I look forward to that day, but it doesn't mean that I can't enjoy the season that I'm living in right now.

So, to whatever season you may be living in, remember to enjoy it!  Those other times and seasons will come soon enough.