Tiptoeing Through the Tulips

If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.  Matthew 6:22-23a

I’m obsessed with my garden.  Really, every single morning I don a bathrobe, pour a cup of coffee, and spend a minimum of a half of an hour creeping through my yard smiling at the Rocky Mountain Honeysuckle, tickling open the Iceland Poppies, whispering sweet nothings over the Mexican Primrose.  Even before the spring flowers actually began their wild trill of color, I would go out there to gloat and grin and pray health into those almost-flowers- the tiny buds that would be.  And then I would start my day.  And then I would pull out my journal and bible and grouch about how so-and-so really needed to get their act together and fuss about this-and-that worrisome behavior and should I confront him-or-her.

Every now and then in the middle of my devotion, my eye would catch some previously-unseen splash of color in the yard.  I would stop everything, leap out of my chair, and race over to clap my hands and commence my own personal version of a highland fling to celebrate the growth.  And then.

And then I felt this slight whispering.  This whispering that said, let this garden be a lesson in how to love.  In how to live.  I recognize that when it comes to my garden, my eyes are full of light and I see only good things.  CLEARLY my garden is at least ten years out from making the Better Home and Gardens centerfold, but I see only the potential for beauty- the little half-centimeter growths that could possibly amount to a bud, that could possibly unfurl into a flower. 

But when it comes to people, my eyesight tends to be bad and sometimes I only see darkness.  I am quick to identify flaws in the landscape, quick to point out miniscule disappointments or instances of poor judgment.  What would my day be if I allowed God to give me a vigorous face-wash so that I only focus on the beauty in people’s lives, if I were to spend my waking moments singing and strutting over my friends’ growths and decisions for good.  If I were to spend as much energy spying out potential buds of the spirit that maybe might plump out into fruits of the spirit.