“For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.”
-Isaiah 61:11

As an aspiring gardener, this verse really speaks to me. In the darkest times of winter, the catalogs arrive, and I spend hours pouring over the beautiful illustrations and descriptions and thinking about and planning for spring planting season. As the weather warms, the earth brings forth all kinds of shoots, some desirable and some not so much. (Bindweed and buttercup, really?!) I wait eagerly for the carefully planted seeds and tubers to spring up and rejoice as they grow and produce. Then comes the challenge of weeding, feeding, and watering to make sure the plants can produce. The earth and the garden may cause the springing forth, but the gardener’s skill, knowledge, and hard work are necessary to ensure the harvest.

I look at God, as the creator of the Garden of Eden, as a true Master Gardener! How God must rejoice when righteousness and praise spring up before all the nations. As a part of His creation, I believe our responsibility is to foster the development of righteousness and praise through our thoughts, conversations, and actions. As St. Teresa of Ávila so beautifully writes: “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

Gracious God, we thank you for giving wonderful examples to help us follow you. Help us to live and grow in your love. In Jesus’s name, we pray. Amen.
-Cathey Frederick