It is not in mankind to direct his steps. However, our steps can be directed by God, if we will give him the reins. It is not so easy with the paths in our hearts.

At a recent visit to my stepmother’s bedside, where she was waiting on her own next step into eternity, my heart led me on an unwanted path. I remembered some very troubling childhood events, one after another, as if I were replaying the disturbing movie in fast-forward.

Keep in mind, before judging me on my refusal to let go of the past, that it was my own choice. I spent days sitting at the bedside of a woman who was not always very nice to me. I have truly forgiven her, although she had never asked for this forgiveness.

Sadly, forgiving does not always entail forgetting. I tried, and earnestly prayed, that the flood of memories would cease, but they kept rolling down like so much wreckage in a horrible catastrophe.

When I opened my Bible to read some Psalms for her, they seemed full of David’s cries to the Lord for retribution for the atrocities committed on him by his enemies. Even the Scriptures were pushing my heart down this path!

My voice lowered to a murmur on those parts, as I prayed that she would not understand what my heart was crying. I only wanted peace for her, to go and be with the God of forgiveness and be done with her suffering.

As I looked into the wrinkled, pain-wracked face of the most helpless of humanity, I did forgive each one of those awful acts as I encountered them on this path that my heart was taking me.

Despite my memory dragging me back to the hideous past, it cannot make me react to it in an un-Christ-like way. God has more power than that! These things had hurt deeply, almost fatally, as a teenager; but cannot reach me now that I am “in Christ.”

There are paths in my garden that lead to hidden areas that are neglected and ugly. Thorny plants, thick Bermuda grass, and burrs have all but choked out the plants that had been meant to grow there.

The gardener needs to go down those paths and clear out the weeds. Yesterday I pulled up some dying Cleomes, and now my arms are red-striped from the thorns. It had to be done. From the front of the bed, it looks no different. But it is good to know that the weeds are cleared out.

Is it this way with memories? I’m not sure. Why can I not clear them out once and for all? The heart is a strange place, and filled with all kinds of random things in addition to what we have put there intentionally.

One thing I do know, I put more plants in my garden than most people do, and closer together. Many times they crowd out the weeds because there is simply no room. The fact that these darker, thornier paths exist is not sufficient excuse to linger there in misery.

This visit proved to be the last time I saw her in this life. Those paths are still in my heart, as well as some really good things in my memory of her.

It is now time to re-fill my heart and mind with more of the goodness God has blessed me with.

“If there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things” (Philippians 4:8 NASB).

I will choose to walk in the light.

Christine (Tina) Berglund

Broken, battered,  fallen plants. It’s a natural way of life. They grow anyway, usually.

A windstorm can snap off a brittle stem or flatten a stand of wild grasses or wheat. A hailstorm can rip off flower petals as well as any angry toddler.

When the storm passes, the stems grow upward again. Often they climb a nearby plant for support, whether or not that companion was likewise damaged. Sometimes the support is mutual, and the intertwined stems do together what they could not do alone.

It is not uncommon to find vining plants knocked off their trellises after a storm.

We all have experienced the awareness from time to time of being broken and battered. Some days, it can seem a monumental task to keep standing when you are drained emotionally. A friend confided that she felt a huge strain of being the “best person she could be.”

Her friend gave a response worth repeating. “Your honesty about yourself is exactly the right method for being the best person you can be!”

It is a great blessing to have people that you can talk with about your own deficiencies — and even feelings of deficiency. In fact, it is prescribed in Scripture!

“So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great effectiveness” (James 5:16, NET).

The word “sin” here is hamartia, best translated as “missing the mark.” We are imperfect people in an imperfect world. We miss the mark again and again. The storms of life flatten us as badly as the wind knocks down the pretty flowers, beating them to the ground to wallow in the mud.

But we must arise from the filth! The flowers do.

When gathering a bouquet, I am often astonished that the stems that looked a little short in the garden were actually the part of a longer stem along the ground. The new growth went straight upward after being ruthlessly blown over.

We all miss the mark; constantly, repeatedly, in spite of our efforts not to do so. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

Yes, it is exhausting and frustrating. But there is a remedy for that frustration while we are on earth, and that is to confess our struggles to one another.

Some mistakenly think this means to tell the whole assembly. There are certainly times when this is the right thing to do.

But it’s more helpful to have a few trusted friends who can commiserate with you and lift you up personally in prayer! You can also be accountable to friends who know your struggles.

It may be a family member, spouse, parent, child, or someone who is that friend “closer than a brother” of Proverbs 18:24.

Do you risk possible rejection? Yes.

Open up in little things first. Find someone who can be trusted. That’s a tough task! Many of us will not ever find that kind of friend.

In the meantime, pour out your heart to God. He listens. We are not guaranteed earthly friends who can be trusted to help us grow and thrive after being thrown down by life. We ARE guaranteed the listening ear of God himself!

“Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place” (2 Chronicles 7:15, NASB).

Take time to make Christian friends, if for no other reason than to help others in their journey through this dirty mess we call “life.”

Christine (Tina) Berglund

How can you put a price on fresh blueberries from your own garden? And yet, a local nursery specializing in native plants does just that. And it’s quite high — the Yard Boy said it was $35.00.

As he and I stood over the dead stick that is now sticking up out of the ground chiding us with its barrenness, we wondered why we would spend so much money. Worse yet, we neglected to put sulfur on these plants as they grew weaker and weaker over the past year. The leaves were showing signs of needing more acidity in the soil, but we just never got around to applying it. One is still alive and putting out blossoms, the other is beyond hope.

Admittedly, Blueberries should not cost this much, but the rabbits kept chowing down on the tender twigs of the smaller bushes we had tried to grow, and we thought this would be a good method of rabbit-proofing our potential berry crop. The larger stems of these big shrubs did prove to be less appealing to the annoying bunnies.

But one died anyway, just like the smaller blueberry bushes before them.

It is said, “Nothing is sure but death and taxes.” This may ring true for most of us, but there are many people who seem to be able to avoid taxes. That leaves one thing in this life that is certain.

“This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one fate for all men. Furthermore, the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil and insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives. Afterwards they go to the dead” (Ecclesiastes 9:3, NASB).

If we all know death is certain, why do many of us live as if that weren’t so? None of us are getting out of here alive, unless the Lord comes first.

Dismissing our own worth in God’s sight is as foolish as my neglect of the valuable blueberry bushes. We must not allow our lives to be as unproductive as that one that died within the year. Do you know that we never had a single blueberry off of it?

Like the overpriced blueberry bushes, we were all bought with a price.

“For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:10).

Christine (Tina) Berglund

“Plants in the ground, plants in the ground, working like a fool putting plants in the ground.”

This is a little rap ditty that our plant sharing group chants when our plant acquisitions overtake our plant installations. It’s a parody of a popular rap song introduced to the American Idol audience by “General” Larry Platt in 2010.

It’s easy to keep on getting, getting, getting new plants from all kinds of sources, without a real intended home for every one of them.

True, once in a while a gardener finds the perfect specimen for a particular location in her garden, and then must move a less desirable plant out of the way.

But in my “addiction enabling” circle of friends, we often just want to have the newest and best plant, especially when it can be found at a bargain price.

The result is often a collection of plants awaiting their forever homes, languishing for far too long in a temporary place we call a “pot ghetto.” Some never make it out of there alive!

Near the end of springtime many of us are frantically digging up our gardens to put the plants into better places to survive the rising temperatures and drying winds of summer.

“Plants in the ground,” we encourage each other. Plant acquisition is not a bad thing in and of itself, but if the pace outstrips our ability to plant and care for the new arrivals, then we run into problems.

Similarly, it’s a good thing to acquire Bible knowledge, but an even better thing to implant it into our hearts and minds and let it take root there and grow.

The shallow and constricting black nursery pots won’t let plant roots spread out and thrive, any more than our brains are meant to hold such valuable treasure as God’s word without letting it take root in our souls.

The living and active word of God is meant to find a forever home in our hearts. Bible knowledge and memorization are the “acquisition” phase of Christian growth, like my bargain shopping and plant swapping.

However, if all we do is acquire, we might be in danger of letting the precious knowledge shrivel and die of neglect if it is not put to good use.

For instance, I have a few herbs sitting on my back porch right now, waiting to be planted. They are in the two-inch plastic nursery pots that they came in. The outer roots started to curl around the pots as they seek further nourishment and water. On very hot days, the tiniest of these roots will die.

Oh, it won’t kill the plants when that happens. But it will prevent the herbs from growing much bigger, and if kept confined like this, they will be too stressed to survive the winter.

Meanwhile, the leaves will never develop enough essential oils to make them tasty enough to use as seasonings. There is not enough nourishment in a few cubic inches of dirt for that!

The constant drying of the limited soil is like the second type of heart described in the parable of the sower.

“A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture” (Luke 8:5,6 KJV).

Let’s get the Bible transplanted into our hearts and minds, and then into our actions!

Christine (Tina) Berglund @ www.forthright.net