A Time for Everything

To Everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born,
And a time to die;
A time to plant,
And a time to pluck what is planted.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-2


(Ian helping remove border rocks; the spot where my Chinese Lanterns used to be; The Lanterns that will be dried for fall decorations)

The last two lines of this passage came into my mind this morning, while I was working out in my garden. It's getting to be that time of year where all the fall jobs of gardening need to be done, so that next spring you find that, hopefully at least, a few things survived the winter. Since my garden was less then fantastic, and since my husband will be digging around the foundation in the next few days anyway, this process has begun a little earlier then usual this year, and has been a little more involved. I am calling it "de-gardening".


(Before and after pruning shots of my raspberry patch, we'll find out in the spring if I did more harm then good.)

I was a little depressed about the devestation in my garden, and those verses seemed to fit my mood (the Beatles song based on them has always made me melancholy), so I looked them up. While I can quote a good chunk of that whole section, I was a little startled by the two lines BEFORE the gardening ones, because I hadn't remembered how the whole thing started. "A time to be born," Here I was, bemoaning the loss of a few flowers, while at the same time counting down the days until the arrival of our new baby (and a whole new project =) Suddenly the loss of a few plants became rather meaningless. There really is a time for everything (like flower gardening), but once again, the Lord needed to adjust my perspective just a little bit.