"Garden Somethin'..."

I called my mom on Mother's Day. 

I had rushed to the post office on Thursday morning to mail the greeting cards for my mother and grandmothers, hoping that they would get there in time (and they surprisingly did!!). 

Regardless, in our phone conversation, one of the things I asked her was, "did you get my card?"  To which she replied, "yes, and so did both of your grandmothers." 

She then went on to tell me about her recent visit with her mom and dad.  Apparently, she and my sister-in-law had taken all the kiddos up to see their great-grandparents a few weeks back. 

Now, my mom's parents always plant a huge garden every year.  Whenever I call to catch up with them,  there's always lots of talk about what's growing, how much they planted this year, and what things don't seem to be doing too well. 

So as you can imagine, when they all arrived that afternoon, there were gardening tools and plants laid out on the front porch as Papaw had apparently been working in the garden that morning.  Mom goes on to tell me that when they got out of the car, Luke, my little nephew, says to his great-grandpa, "Papaw, I want to garden somethin'!  Can I help you garden somethin'?" 

To my grandfather's delight, he led the whole bunch of great-grandkids down to the garden to plant a few vegetables and such. 

Of course, little Luke didn't do much "gardening".  He more or less just played in the dirt and messed up the rows and mounds that his great-grandpa had meticulously worked on.  But, I'm sure Papaw was still smiling from ear to ear as his little "helpers" did more harm than good as they attempted to "garden something". 

Sometimes, I bet that's how it is with our heavenly Father.  When we look at our own efforts, it seems to that we don't accomplish much.  Sometimes, it might even seem that we do more harm than good. But God Almighty desires that we join Him in His work.  It's not about whether or not you make mistakes...  It's just about joining Him in the work that He's already doing....

Jesus reminded us that there is a need for more gardeners to help:
...so pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.  Matthew 9:38 NLT

Maybe we should all be asking, "I want to garden somethin'!  Can I help you garden somethin'?"