One of the very nicest things about growing a garden is that it generates gratitude. Unlike interior decorating, the outdoor landscape is constantly changing: evolving or degrading in one area or another. Maintenance isn’t just cleaning up “after the fact,” it involves constant care before the growth of your living “decor” causes irreversible problems.

That element alone gives the gardener a cause not only for regular work, but also for constant and continual hope. That hope, when realized, turns into gratefulness. No one who has ever tended a variety of plants has come to expect success all of the time. When it happens, success turns into an outpouring of joy and gratitude to the One who makes it possible. And no, that’s not the yard boy.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3, NASB).

God is the One from whom all blessings flow, as we sing in the old beloved song known as “Doxology.”

A close family member tells us that she earned everything she has, and that the Lord had no part in giving her the plentiful amount of blessings that she enjoys. She could not be more wrong!

We can’t even claim credit for our own existence; God is our Maker. “For in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children'” (Acts 17:28). We can do nothing without Christ (John 15:5.)

Add to the gift of our existence the many good things we enjoy in this life, and the thoughtful person cannot help but stand in awed reverence at the love and favor that the Father has poured out upon us. And why?

There can be no logical explanation except for the exceptional love that He has for us. The Maker of the cosmos loves us? It made the Psalmist exclaim in astonishment, “What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him?” (Psalm 8:4).

As the gardener watches in wonder as an exquisitely intricate blossom unfolds, he or she can only be thankful. All it took to make a nondescript seed produce this incredible artwork was a little water, soil, and care. The reward was more than worth the effort, and the one who planted it knows this. There is no way the gardener can feel that he or she actually “deserves” the garden’s beauty and bounty.

When you receive more than you give, as you do in a garden, you can’t help but give thanks! A tomato plant that you have paid fifty cents for can give you twenty dollars worth of organically grown tomatoes! This is only a monetary value, it doesn’t even begin to count the pleasure of growing them, or the convenience of choosing a red, ripe fruit within minutes of your dinner. I am convinced that many prayers of thankfulness are breathed in gardens, and that gratitude is grown there right beside the sweet peas and columbines.

May our gratefulness to a bountifully, generous God grow and bloom, and become a sweet fragrance to our Father in heaven!

Christine Berglund