The Garden Poem (Under copyright) By: Elaina Simpson, C.S.
What happened to my garden?
Why did my flowers droop and die?
Thoughts creep in,
Self-condemnation, fear of other life failures. Did I sin?
Ruminating, tilling the soil, turning over thought,
Preventing healing, stuck and caught.
Did I neglect and not pray enough?
Did I not guard when things got tough?
What I see seems so real to me,
and it's not at all what I wanted to see.
Is there something I’m not seeing?
...A person I’m not being?
...Something I’m not believing?
Then, a little thought whispers, Be - still - my dear child.
You could never do wrong,
For you are My song!
You are loved and free,
You are the very expression of Me!
So you are free of mistakes;
Because those I can’t make.
This means you too, spiritually
Because I am Spirit and you're in Me.
Look again My dear child,
You don't have to be riled!
For my love is yours,
No matter how much seeming mortal suggestion rains and pours.
Then I notice,
Turning my gaze higher, above the mud
Growing there all along, was a bud
Buried amongst the fallen leaves,
With aspirations to grow up high like the trees!
And oh, what a relief...
What I saw, was only false belief.
Discouragement, deception have no place
Because growth is held in Love's embrace.
Perception shifts and the fog is lifted
In gratitude, thought has shifted
Lifting thought above the sod.
Off of the problem and onto God.
Blossoming amidst the uprooted false belief...
I was told to trust and peek,
And there it was... beautiful, delicate, and meek.
A cherished lesson I will hold close forever
Remembering in any challenge, no matter
God was cultivating something beautiful and grand
...But Life was never the responsibility of man.
Thank you God, for always being here and near,
I now know I don’t need to fear.
It is God that sustains, heals, and frees,
Even when I couldn’t see, the flower before the seed. [see S&H 125:28]
As the sun governs and blossoms flowers and the trees
Love also reveals Her care for me.
By Elaina Simpson, C.S.
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I wrote this poem some years ago...
The beauty of art or poetry is that the reader can interpret it however they want, but I'll give some quick backstory. I had been struggling with a challenge and I decided I was going to go outside to get some quiet and pray about it-- And wouldn't come inside until I had my answer.
While outside, I noticed that the flowers were dying. Well, now I felt double discouraged! Another problem! Noticing the parallels between both of the wrecks I was dealing with, the idea came to me to write a poem, and to write down my prayer. I had never written a poem before (and haven't since), and it was something that came quickly. It was a modest and humble poem, but served to me, as a helpful lesson and answered prayer.
The flowers appeared dead to me from what I could see. After some prayer about some other challenges, I looked again at the flowers, this time with a new perspective-- I saw that there was a new bud coming in. It was almost like past discouragement and doubt had blinded me from seeing the progress! Both with the garden and in my own experiences.
That made me wonder, if simultaneously, God already had a solution for what I seemed to be troubled with. I realized, there was!
It was a helpful lesson that instead of trying to pray to "make" something happen, I could just be a witness to all the good God was already doing. We can all pray to "see" that, rather than trying to humanly make it happen on own, and feeling burdened by a false sense of responsibility. Letting go of human responsibility helps us trust!
Trust clears the way for a new perspective, for growth and progress. Have a great evening,
Elaina
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