It's the wrong time of year for a Christmas Amaryllis

And it's the wrong time of year for a Christmas JOY ornament

But God knows when HIS SEASONS are ripe for Harvest.

My friend (thank you, Mary) gave me this Christmas Amaryllis Bulb several years ago.  I followed her instructions, but no bloom stalk appeared.  I asked for more instructions; I googled "how to re-bloom amaryllis;" I watered, and I held back on watering; I placed it in the dark, and I placed it in the sun.  NOTHING.  Until this Spring.  Not Christmas, and not even Fall.  But this Spring when I have surrendered much of my place in the garden, God chose to bring the garden to me.

With whispers

                 And wooing

                              And longings

He awakens the Desire for HIS kind of Seasons, and HIS kind of pleasant Boundaries. 

Yes, I am still trying to learn that "Boundaries" word over here.  It has been a difficult week of 

sowing and breaking up ground that seems too hard to ever fall soft with the plow.

But then the Master Gardener parts the fog in my fibro-brain, and tells back to me my own story written years ago in the days of my Care-Giving-Lifestyle:

Another friend entrusted me to care for her Garden on the days she was away from it. This was her own dear Secret Garden, a place set apart from her normal day-to-day life, a Second Home near the Lake, and I was set to help it flourish in her absence.

But neither of us planned for that Summer-of-the-Heat.  Day after day the temps soared above the comfort zone for her newly planted Secret Garden.  The row of young Hydrangeas suffered the most: wilting every afternoon and fainting even in the evening.  I spent hours soaking those baby plants.  And as I watered, I grieved the pain and soon-to-come-passing of my cancer-ridden brother. Hemmed in with those thirsty hydrangeas, I soaked in the Love of God for my hurting brother.  

HEALING came to my brother when Jesus called him to Heaven.  And healing came to me as I poured out my tears alongside the water for those thirsty hydrangeas.

So, this week, when I chafed at the thought of ever learning how to live within the Boundaries set by my Lord, He spoke to me:

"You HAVE learned to walk My way. Remember the hydrangeas in the heat of the drought? Hemmed in, but not cut off, you watched as I helped you pour LIFE on their thirsty ground."

 

 

(Thank you to Janet G for letting me use her beautiful picture of her Secret Garden. This is the way these now-mature Hydrangeas define the Pleasant Boundaries of her Garden.)

We may not know which Season will bring our blooms again.  It probably won't be at the time we would have planned for it.  But we can be sure, God will bring the sun and the water when He knows the time is right.

Time for the Garden to Bloom with HIS new Gifts.

 "Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth." Hosea 6:3

I'm linking up today with The Faith Barista  
where my word is "Bloom."