GARDENING – Page 12 – Skelton Sketches

Hope springs…

Posted on February 21, 2013April 29, 2017 by lindaskelton

Hope springs, because of a promise:

“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” Gen.8:22

And so the seasons cycle ‘round in a never ending succession. Winter cannot stay. Stark leafless branches raising their limbs skyward have only to wait for the sun to do its bidding…

It’s amazing what a little warmth will do!

Though I may seem at present to be obsessed with blooms of the botanical sort, there is another kind of bloom I’m watching, as my youngest prepares to leave the nest…

Amazing what a little love can do….

–LS

And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Rom.5:2-5

But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. Rom.8:25

Borrowed Beauty

Posted on January 31, 2013April 30, 2017 by lindaskelton

While I wait for the snowdrops to push their way up and bring their beauty to my world,

I’m enjoying nature as seen through an artist’s eyes, one of my very favorites…

Something in nature inspires creativity, so I had to sit down with my own quail egg and try my hand at recreating one…

Now that was fun!

And there are more in the fridge where that one came from, thanks to my desert-loving daughter with her own little apartment-dwelling covey of quail…

Always a sunny-side up to be had, even on a rainy day!

–LS

Plants yielding seed

Posted on November 15, 2012April 30, 2017 by lindaskelton

The evenings are longer now. Sweet opportunity to sit by the fire listening to books on tape and shelling beans for next spring’s planting…I love the finished product—this year mixed varieties, but each with its characteristic shape and color. And I’ve been reflecting on this idea of bearing fruit—not just summer’s ripe off-the-tree or vine edible product, but the latent seed for future generations of fruit. Latent fruitfulness, each after its kind…This is a wonderful design.

Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed,

and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed,

each according to its kind, on the earth. And it was so.

The outer blemish and imperfection of this forgotten last-apple-of-summer matters not to the seed which has every potential to grow to be an outstanding tree bearing a bounty of beautiful apples…

You shall have them for food.

And God saw that it was good.

And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

Unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone…

but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Jn.12:24

Take up your cross and follow me…

At this time of year, as living things give away their life energies to nourish the next generation of growing things, I am reminded that what looks like death, or a fading finish, or an insignificant old pod, bears the seeds of a new creation. All is not lost.

What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.I Cor.15:36

Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. II Cor.4:10,11

May the One who ‘supplies seed to the sower and bread for food… supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.’ (II Cor.9:10)

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. I Cor.15:58

–LS

We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us…II Cor.4:7