It’s been the first relatively warm/ sunshiny day here in my neck of the woods. So with my new found love for gardening and landscaping, I couldn’t wait to get outside and work on a few areas around the house. I’m actually amazed at just how excited I’m feeling about my daffodil bulbs I planted last fall coming up and the lilies behind them are too.

It occurred to me as I worked that there have been a lot of things in my life that didn’t turn out the way I thought they would. In fact, they have turned out far better. Me loving gardens is just one of the many surprises that have surprised me along the way. As I looked around our land and our house, I thought about growing up in a little house in a small town. I don’t really consider myself rich, but when I was a kid if I had seen my current house I would think I was. I grew up in town and had absolutely no desire to live in the country. I currently live in the country with no desire to go back to town. Things really do end up different than you think they will. There was a point in my life I thought for sure I’d be a full time missionary in a Latin American nation. I did a couple of short term trips during college but never did end up living in another country. I imagined at one time that the perfect family would be me, my sweetheart, and ten kids. I’m pretty sure four is the perfect number for me now. And thinking of where my sweetheart and I started, in a one bedroom apartment in a not so nice area of the city we lived in, with a roommate who lived in the living room, digging for change to go out and have some fun once and awhile. I’d say we’ve come a long way.

Not forgetting to mention the hard things I’ve went through. That I thought I would never recover from: loneliness, fear, family deaths, miscarriage, emotional and mental struggles. Plus the things that I fight now. All being put on a back burner of my mind as I’ve spent my day just enjoying what I have been given and living out from underneath the clouds that try to hover in my mind.

Years ago I watched a Disney movie “Meet the Robinsons” with my kids. That movie and the song “Little Wonders” by Rob Thomas always gets to me. The main theme of the movie is how a little boy grows up not really getting what he wanted all the time, his biological parents, but in the end he ends up with the family that was perfect for him. The song talks about how the ins and outs of our lives, even the stuff we see as bad, in the end brings us to a place that is good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6wZhd8M848&feature=share

I’ve found that true in my life. I give the credit to God. For some reason, I’m pretty sure it’s just because He loves me, He has brought me through a lot of things in my life both good and bad. Even though there were times I thought the journey was unbearable, He has brought me through.

I’ve made it around the sun 49 times in my life while riding on planet earths orbit of it. Today while taking a break I imagined my life being like a slide show quickly clicking through all its chapters. Some of the chapters happy some sad. Today’s chapter I’ve been writing is: “Me- The Happy Middle Aged Gardner/ New Grandma- Who’s Getting Close to an Empty Nest”. I’m thinking the slide show has been a good one so far. God has been with me every step of the way. Even when I thought He wasn’t, and He has truly brought me to a “spacious place” of His Blessings. God is good to me!

“When I was at my weakest, my enemies attacked— but the Lord held on to me. His love broke open the way and he brought me into a beautiful broad place. He rescued me—because his delight is in me!”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭18:18-19‬ ‭TPT‬‬