Exactly ten years ago this week, I wrote about a surprising gift received while doing yard work. The message still sings in my heart ...
here's an excerpt:
The ivy had gotten a strangle hold on the junipers and the junipers had gotten a hold on me. Scratched skin and snagged pants, I was losing the battle on this backyard hill. All I wanted was a clear place to plant some flowers for spring. I was not a gardener and was beginning to wish I had enlisted the aid of someone who was - or at least had more experience with thickets. The sun was hot for a March afternoon and I was about to call it quits when something caught my eye - something purple lying in the dirt.
It was the tip of a crocus trying to push up under the weight of all the dead branches. This burst of color startled and delighted me and energized my efforts. Suddenly, my quest took on a whole new meaning and I was crusading for a cause. The more I cleared around the young blossom, the more flashes of color appeared ... and so did the tears. The more I rescued the flowers, the more I rescued myself. We were somehow connected - these sisters in the dirt and I. The tangled ivy and dead branches became the painful memories that had choked my growth and hid my colorful spirit. I sobbed and pulled for another hour.
The photo you see above is what greeted me the next morning. I am so very glad that I tackled the yard myself. What a gift it was to release the debris of the past and clear a path for newness to emerge.
Note: I'm still not a gardener but I am a firm believer in gifts that appear in surprising ways. What treasures might you unearth this Spring?
