"The garden doesn't have to be perfect to enjoy it"

Things have happened quite quickly this year, generally speaking that is how it has been, I have moved house to a  restorative, beautiful world, reflective of God's tender loving care for me, I am part of a straightforward church community, I was baptised, I am reading more and more, praying increasingly, finding strength in God where before I found strength elsewhere. There still lingers impatience and worry. God knows for example that I want to marry and I have these ideas of how I want to serve Him and yet I don't know how I can get there.

I know that the two things are in hand. Regarding the former, I have felt both at peace and on occasion slightly worried, in a supermarket carpark in fact I felt like I was starting to panic about it, and was starting to breathe rapidly but managed to calm down before it got out of hand. On the flip side and for the most part however I trust God, so these feelings never last long.  Only recently I prayed about the matter as I felt I was prompted to pray for my husband who I am not yet aware of. I took this seriously and out came my long list:

*Someone who is more experienced with the Bible than me and can teach me
*Someone who I respect and I can go to Church with
*Someone who I can walk hand-in-hand with and enjoy nature and God's creation
*Someone who loves me for me and enourages me to be a woman ( believe me this is important I am so used to keeping house, paying my bills, drilling holes if I have to, painting, washing up, housework...) it can start to feel like you are both husband and wife!

...Anyway it was a long list... and eventually I felt God say "...That's enough..."  :o)

I have also felt that God has told me to leave it with Him, and so now I do, because if I have since started to pray about it, I have felt that I will not make any difference to the outcome!  As far as God is concerned I think it gets to a point where He just wants you to tell Him that you trust Him and and not rattle off huge wishlists!!!

Regarding everything else, I spent a little time in my garden today, mainly because two hyacinths from indoors needed planting out to keep good health. As I was pruning, I felt this revelation that it would take a long time to get me where I was wanted, and that the garden didn't have to be perfect to enjoy it...

...And, my garden isn't perfect, it has this wild random beauty and it is surrounded by nature, it is full of life of all kinds and it has weeds but it has potential. You can see the potential beauty and enjoy it in its current state because you know it will not always be in that state, you can appreciate for its state of development....

And, I think it was a more personal slant on a message that I have been reading about in some of Joyce Meyer's writings, that you should enjoy where you are on the way to where you are going...

God enjoys us even though we are not perfect. We are works in the making, He sees the potential beauty, He relishes what He has, and He knows what we can become.

Father, keep me on track, remind me and keep me strong about being a work in the making. Keep me dependent on you for all things for which only you have the right timing.

Love
Louise x