garden – Apples of Gold Encouragement

BLOOM WHERE YOU’RE PLANTED…By Lori Alicea

We’re all planted somewhere.

A friendship…
A marriage…
A job…
A community…
Our personal dreams…

Yes, we’re all planted somewhere, but are we blooming?

Looking back over the last two years when my husband and I planted our lives in this small community, I question our blooming while watering our gardens at sunset.

Gardens grow with love and attention where breathtaking flowers of every bouquet are birthed.

Paintings of wonder are framed in the gardener’s mind at spring, imagining their strokes of color and beauty bursting off the canvas at summer’s end.

I’ve asked myself…

Have our gardens of neighbors grown and flourished from those seeds of love and attention we’ve planted in them?

Are there bouquets of relationship flowers bursting in color up and down the street because we’ve imagined them at spring?

Have we bloomed in contentment from the address we are planted?

With a brand new house next door (like ours) which has been up for sale these past few months, we’ve intentionally greeted those peeking through the windows with a verbal tour of the neighborhood, occasionally hosting a tour of our home when these prospective neighbors wondered what the inside and size looked like with furniture.

David and I have enjoyed promoting our home sweet home community, sowing seeds of kindness to whom God might be sending to live one house over from us.

That neighbor finally moved in a few weeks ago, an older woman living on her own with her only daughter residing in Texas; an opportunity to love on somebody’s mother in her absence.

Do unto others…

As I would have wanted done for my mother in the same situation.

We’ve made a few friends over the last two years, helping the “older than us” when we can.

David went missing for a few hours last summer when I found him fixing another man’s roof; keeping the homeowner safe in his lawn chair after my husband stopped him from wobbling up the ladder.

You wave at passerby’s in the community, rolling our window down every now and then for a few moments of conversation at the mailbox hub.

We’ve introduced ourselves to those congregating outside
during our evening walks around the park.

You never know what kind of day your neighbors are having; who’ve also reciprocated the love when the weather report on our faces reads cloudy skies.

Kindness is always the cherry on top for a smile waiting to happen.

But the question remains…

Have we bloomed in contentment these last two years we’ve planted ourselves at this address?

While we love this charming home God gave us, we desperately long the country life we enjoyed during our early years of marriage.

Every night in the evening, David and I intentionally get lost in back-roads, driving towards the desperate longing that calls our hearts, an excerpt I once wrote about in a former blog…
________________________

THE LONG WAY HOME
By Lori A Alicea

(excerpt…)

The long way home gives you time to reacquaint yourselves with one another, as life changes from day to day as the four seasons do, and one must dress appropriately for the weather escorted in.

“Are we there yet?”

Usually not, when the compass of our travels is a constant turn to the east or west down roads where the scenery isn’t familiar and stirs your curiosity for any hidden log cabins to discover.

cabin near trees — Photo by Marcus Murphy on Pexels.com

Then is the map you follow for those log cabins you long to see for the umpteenth time, stopping at the edge of their driveway and dreaming together over a few sips of our coffee, adding a childlike gift to our Christmas list once again this year.

snowy brown house near tree — Photo by Evelyn Chong on Pexels.com

The best seats in the house can be purchased for the price of a few gallons of gas and uninterrupted moments of time except to enjoy and take in the view of nature’s carefree children chasing each other around the trees and deep into the woods of their private playground.

brown deer surrounded with snow covered trees — Photo by Jill Wellington on Pexels.com

(excerpt end…)
________________________

For our young granddaughter’s delight, I’ve sown a few rocks in my garden for their discovery…

Rocks of peace, laughter, believing, friends and hope…each glittered to catch their attention.

Maybe I’ve sown these rocks of encouragement for this little girl in me unknowingly.

Sometimes we question why and where we’re planted when you’d rather be re-potted elsewhere.

But we are reminded to find contentment in all things…

…for I have learned to be content in whatever situation I am in.
Philippians 4:11 NIV

I’ve also learned these last sixty-one summers, it’s best to trust and be in awe of those…

Paintings of wonder framed with us in the gardener’s mind at spring, imagining those strokes of color and beauty of our lives bursting off the canvas at summer’s end.

Because…

God has all things blooming no matter where we’re planted.

FROM THE MOUTHS OF BABES…By Lori A Alicea

“Do you have a picture of grandma?”

Preoccupied while frying bacon and measuring flour for a batch of homemade breakfast biscuits for three of my grandchildren who spent the night previous, my curious granddaughter asks the question again,

“Gaga, do you have a picture of grandma?”

A quick glance at the clock whose hands stretched out to wake and announce the sleepy hour of 5:30 in the morning, quite early for a little girl to be thinking about grandma still tightly wrapped in her blankie.

But, from the innocent mouths of babes, a child was asking.

Looking up at Aubrey with my full attention now, though still kneading biscuit dough from memory, this Gaga handled a granddaughter’s heart with delicate hands,

“Are you missing grandma?”

Secretly, I had also been missing my mother terribly these early weeks of summer; longing to share a glass of lemonade and the day’s nothings under the shade tree of our back yard together.

Now, here is a five year old, whose birthday was recently shared and celebrated with her sister Ayva turning seven, who also is missing her grandma.

Not having too many pictures framed and displayed in the house, I did remember a 5 x 7 keepsake hidden between the pages of my Bible for this sweet child to reminisce over; a moment taken at our 25^th Wedding Anniversary three years ago.

I wanted my mother close whenever the waves of emotions for her rushed and reached the shore of my heart, usually during the quiet hours of my morning devotions with God.

In just a few short months this September, an ocean of memories will flood the vacancy our mother left behind when she waved good-by for heaven only two years ago.

With Aubrey recently blowing out the candles of her fifth birthday cake,

Only highlights the impact her grandmother had made during the three short years these two shared together.

My mother’s hand-print remains on Aubrey’s life and an entire legacy of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren as well.

(Aubrey with her grandmother on the left and attending grandma’s funeral on the right; just three short years and yet a little girl still asks for a picture.)

Aubrey isn’t alone in her longing for pictures of grandma, as six months ago at Christmas, her cousin Gracie was yearning the same.

In the spirit of Christmas and found beneath the tree, an album filled and full of grandma’s pictures for Gracie, a gift to comfort a little girl who also missed her grandmother.

My mother would have been eighty-two years young this July 21^st, yet our family is forever thankful for the final picture we gathered together outside her window for…

An 80^th Princess Gala Event in mother’s honor…

A perfect afternoon for the remaining birthday we’d ever celebrate with our mother, grandmother and great-grandmother this side of heaven.

moms 80th birthday party window - candace , gracie and girls

moms birthday guests - ayva, gracie and aubrey

Recently, Aubrey was watering the flowers of my tiny garden, not realizing many of the decorations of angels, wind chimes, birds and flower pots were once placed outside her grandmother’s window of her own garden;

A summer’s delight to lift a mother’s spirit during those lonely afternoons when family wasn’t visiting.

Mother’s love for the Lord is a families great inheritance she passed on down thru her legacy.

Recently, during a day I ached for my mother, God unearthed a treasure written in my mother’s handwriting, a gift of encouragement I have no idea how it was buried and hidden on my computer after all these years.

Your family loves and misses you mother.

Two years is but a blink of the eye for us, yet once you stepped into eternity with God, there was no looking back for you.

In your absence, I’ve had to take your place at the card table.

You’d be disappointed in the whiners and poor sports you used to play with, but actually be proud of the daughter who holds her own and plays in your honor for a game of Phase 10.

From the innocent mouths of babes, her heart was asking.

“Gaga, do you have a picture of grandma?”

Aubrey held her grandmother’s hand for only three short years, a matriarch who left her hand-print on the heart of a grandchild for a lifetime.

Aubrey Ann, your picture of grandma remains between the family bible pages where she loved her Lord from, the great inheritance your grandmother passed on down to you and her legacy of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

WE’RE BLOOMING AGAIN By Lori A Alicea

We’re blooming again!

Though it’s the beginning of fall,
We’re blooming again.

After uprooting from a three year stay in a nearby town,
The first of many handfuls of seeds have been sown into the fields of our new beginning and yes, it delights us to see we’re blooming.

Moving is terribly difficult on the roots of a family.

Moving disrupts what has been deeply planted and watered in love of living life together; memories deep in the rich soil of neighbors, surroundings and the familiar.

Disturbing the gardens of family tempts the chance your fields won’t thrive and bloom as beautiful when re-potted into a new address.

Uprooting is always a risk.

Yet yielded to the Master Gardner tending your fields though,
You discover you bloom again,
You bloom where you are planted.
A new address stirs the morning cup of loneliness.

You sit outside and notice a neighborhood of unnamed faces.

People aren’t as friendly and passerby’s don’t notice your gesture of waving hello as the town we recently left.

Neighbors haven’t stopped to introduce themselves or sit for a momentary cup of coffee. Unless you can include that cute cat who hung around for a few days meowing for something to eat then vanished when your “meanie” husband banned you from feeding the stray.
I get over myself quickly though because after multiple seasons of uprooting in my life, I’ve discovered God always has his eyes on someone hurting and replants us next door to water their pain with His love;

To be His lamppost in a dark night, a bright light leading their lost way back to Him.

My heart already goes out to the single mom I noticed seated the other day on her front steps alone, the lonely mother I used to be so many decades ago.

The elderly mother living across the street from her young adult daughter with a child of her own already caught my attention; a scene played out in mine and my mother’s life two addresses ago.

Then there’s the recently widowed woman about my age quite possibly needing a friend.

Maybe the young married couple within view of our living room window could glean from our twenty-six years of marriage.

I have a feeling that the empty seats in my life won’t be empty for long.
The wisdom of God just tells us to
Bloom where we are planted.

We’re re-potted there for His purposes;

A mission trip of sorts without leaving the country, just the bountiful fields of your neighborhood.

We bloom to the cultivating hands of the Master Gardner.

Gardens grow when hearts are willing to die as seeds planted in the ground, surrendered to the Gardner’s weeding, watering and being given away for others.

In these gardens of replanting,

Consider it an opportunity, a privilege.

Consider it a given,
You’ll always bloom again.

Tag: garden

BLOOM WHERE YOU’RE PLANTED…By Lori Alicea

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FROM THE MOUTHS OF BABES…By Lori A Alicea

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WE’RE BLOOMING AGAIN By Lori A Alicea

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