Over the past few weeks I have been closing down my square foot garden for the winter – well actually, I still have some tomato plants that will make it a few more weeks, and then I will have closed down the garden for the winter. While I have been doing that I have been thinking about bigger and better gardens in the spring.
In the meantime next door, men have been tearing down my neighbors deck and removing his pool. Their vehicles have been driving over the space where his garden once bloomed. My neighbor is now a old man, and cannot maintain those projects any longer.
It’s has been a little sobering to consider my plans for expansion while watching it’s ultimate end state going on right before my eyes. It’s not that it makes it appear futile, because I know my neighbor has had several great years of enjoyment and value from that deck and from his garden, but it does place a little perspective on things.
This weekend one of my friends received a message that his grandmother had passed. He had mentioned how just a few years ago he was commenting on how lucky he was to have all four of his grandparents still living, and with her passing they are all gone.
It’s the circle of life, I suppose, but it sure is sobering to witness! Let’s not let that drop us into an ‘all is vanity’ cry. Let us use that understanding to motivate and focus us on those things of utmost importance.
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:19-21 (New International Version)