Gratitude

A book I’ve been enjoying lately says gratitude is good for the soul.

I stood in my little mudroom and looked out at the late summer garden and saw it with different eyes. So many times I am just looking closely (and critically) at things–this weed here, that dead branch there, the dead flower heads that need to come off. But this day I marveled that in two years I am blessed with such a garden.

Petunias are the best. And free petunias are better than best! Most of the petunias that are still blooming are free ones that hybridized and self-seeded from last years garden. This bi-color one just now showed up!

And this one? I brought back some pretty petunias from Cambria. They went from that cool seaside climate to over 100 degree dry heat here. Needless to say, they did not fare well. I came back from my two weeks in Sisters to see some unknown plants coming up. I thought they were probably weeds, but decided to give them a chance. They were the offspring of those Cambria petunias!! I’ve never seen such a thing.

And from that book, Soul Keeping, by John Ortberg, here is a beautiful collection of words.

We all have two worlds, an outer world that is visible and public and obvious, and an inner world that may be chaotic and dark or may be gloriously beautiful. In the end, the outer world fades. We are left with the inner world. It is what we will take with us. I am an unceasing spiritual being with an eternal destiny in God’s glorious universe.