Lovin' Spring!!

We are in MS at my parent's house this week....enjoying some beautiful Spring days with family. I'll post some pictures from our week when I return home tomorrow.

For as long as I can remember, I have loved the Springtime. I love the cool mornings and warm afternoons. I am amazed at all of God's creation budding and becoming green. The feeling that all things are new, are awakening, are alive. Since becoming a mom, I have seen the energy level in my children spike around March each year. They too sense the excitement of longer days, playing outside, shedding their big coats and sweaters....

Sitting outside on a nice Spring day is a God-given opportunity to look around at the beauty that God has created...but also our chance to take a look inside of ourselves to see what needs to be pruned and where growth needs to appear. The selfishness, the unkind words, the lack of discipline, the materialism...attitudes that can be like pesky weeds needing to be plucked...personal "weeds" that need to be removed before the "flowers" of the spirit are harmed, overcrowded. I have thought so much about what in my life has my spirit wilting. Are my bad attitudes getting more fertilizer than my God-given gifts? Do I spend more time cultivating my worldly self or the person God wants me to be?

I know...leave it to me to over-analyze gardening and my spiritual walk while enjoying a nice play day...but, God uses all types of reminders to bring me a little closer, to grow me a little more into the creation he wants me to be...
We have to be planted (in church, with good friends to hold us up), we have to be watered (by the life-giving water of the One who created us), we have to be fertilized (by Bible study and prayer time), we have to prune out the weeds (all those things that keep us from growing straight and beautiful), and we have to be the kind of bloom that we were created to be (a rose is a rose, not a daisy - we all have talents, skills, personalities that are from Him to be used to glorify Him). Now, to grow where I am planted....I pray the water from my Lord washes away the dirt of my life and that I am drenched in His word and time with Him so that I can be the creation my Creator created...not letting my weeds grow so big and strong to overtake me....