Starting this week, you can preorder a bouquet for my “Buy-One-Give-One” opportunity. For any one $25 wrapped bouquet you purchase, I will give one mason jar arrangement to a nursing home resident at Brookdale. These jars will be hand delivered the last week of June by a group of trusty kiddos whose smiles will hopefully brighten the resident's day more than the flowers. Just reply to this email or DM me on Instagram or Facebook and I'll put you on the bouquet list (with flexible porch pickup times), and add a jar to the list to be delivered to residents. This is just a small way to serve the seniors in our community and I would love for you to join me!
We love to bring kiddos to visit the garden and dig up their own veggies to take home. Some friends of ours shared their sweet girls with us for an hour or so last week, and it was such a joy. There is something magical about digging your own carrot, washing it off and crunching down on it right there in the garden. Teaching kids about how our food grows and how God created it all is such a blessing we can give the next generation!
Always Learning
03
Last month I shared how behind I was on my seed starting plans, and I've decided to make this section of the newsletter a highlight of “failures." But instead of failing we will call it learning. I want to humbly share that gardening failures are not only ok, but how we learn and grow!
Pictured above is the beautiful Yarrow I highlighted in last month's newsletter. What I learned this month is that it needs flower support netting. One of the heavy rains trampled the stems down, but the heads quickly turn up towards the sun, leaving a ton of stems bent at a 90 degree angle, which doesn't really work in a vase or bouquet. I was sad to see so many unusable stems, but what a great lesson I can take into next year! Onward!
This month the garden has been teaching me about waiting. June is the first time that the full abundance of flowers are in bloom, and many of them were planted last fall. I have been waiting. And in the waiting, there has been wilting from scorching, late fall afternoons, freezing under a blanket of snow, and even death to the central stem of many seedlings.
However, more than that has been happening…roots have been deepening, stems have been strengthening, and seedlings have been pruned. And these changes are not empty or meaningless, they bring about abundance--countless Snapdragon stems, bursting Black Eyed Susans, and lush beds of Yarrow.
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Oh what a parallel to waiting on the Lord. Our seasons of waiting may stem from failures, trials, or suffering over which we have no control. We may feel wilted from pressure, frozen under a blanket of sorrow, or painfully pruned. But my dear friend, that is not all that is happening.
You are being rooted, you are being strengthened, and you are being pruned to bring about more abundance than you could imagine.
Lamentations 3:25-26 tells us:
“The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”
God is so good to us, and in our waiting He blesses us, and gives us the hope of unendingly beautiful abundance yet to come. Just like the flowers in June.
Thank you for reading, thank you for caring, thank you for joining me along the way. I can't wait to see what the rest of the abundance of summer holds. As always, I would love to hear from you, please reach out anytime. I am so grateful for your support and thankful we can enjoy a life made more beautiful by flowers.