NO GREEN THUMBS ARE NECESSARY

In the life of a gardener, green thumbs are necessary. As close to green as you'll get my thumbs is if I dipped them into latex paint. I'm not much of a gardener, but I do appreciate the deep beauty germinated on a landscape painted with day lillies, hostas, peonies and hydrengeas. And the splendor of it all is when we get to enjoy every stem and bud.

So you can understand why a great deal of work goes into a well-groomed yard. In mine, my husband's botanical handiwork involves tilling the ground, digging holes, planting seeds, fertilizing and weeding. I have an important role as well. I get to point my finger (the one next to my painted thumb) to places in our yard where the flora should bloom. Well, the other morning, my senses met up with wild honeysuckle and mulberries permeating fragrances along my back fence. I thought, "Hum, that's odd. We (oops, I mean, my husband) didn't plant that!" And to my amazement, the Lord also filled my sense with humility and thankfulness. I was humbled by His marvelous handiwork and I was thankful for the object lesson blooming in my yard.

We may not all have green thumbs, but we can still participate in the process of germinating salvation. Too often we tell ourselves, "What can I do? I'm not the pastor (teacher/leader)." But we can do plenty! When we share a timely word in due season to a confused mom, we are watering a parched ground with hope. When we befriend someone struggling to do the right thing, we are weeding the soil from worries. When we offer to pray for a stranger in a chance encounter, we are making the fields ripe for harvest. And the beauty of it all is God's just looking for workers willing to labor in His harvest field (Matthew 9:37).

So from those sweet fragrances, I learned no green thumbs are necessary. God points out the potential and we get to partake in the process of watching a soul reach its full bloom.