I’ve been pondering my hydrangea bush.  I counted 25 blooms on it this morning as I leaned over the porch railing.

This summer is the first time it has bloomed…..in years.

It bugged me a great deal to see it year after year, all green with none of those big puffy flowers that are so beautiful.  I did a little research about hydrangeas this spring and guess what the solution was?

Water.  Lots and lots of water.  Therefore, I’ve been watering this plant religiously day after day.

It just simply needed water.

As a believer, I can’t help but compare this plant and it’s need for water in order to bloom to my soul and how much I need Jesus, Water from the Rock.  I also need His Word, the Bible.  I need church services, I need prayer, I need spiritual songs, I need to praise and worship, I need to meditate.  Another way to say “need” is to say “thirst”.  I thirst for these things…..and as I drink deep they satisfy my soul.

Blessed are they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled.

If I neglect these spiritual disciplines, I won’t flourish and grow.  I’ll still be alive, but I’ll be stagnant.  I’ll still be HIS, because nothing can ever take me from His strong hand, but life will lose some of it’s beauty, it’s peace, it’s abundance if I’m not drinking long and deep from the streams of living water.  I thank God for the thirst He gives me that causes me run to him.

Let but your heart become a valley low,
And God will rain on it till it will overflow.

“I will send down showers”  Ezekiel 34:26

“He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.”  Isaiah 49:10

*****

Sarah and I discovered the first Tiger Lily blooms this morning.

My cat followed me around as I weeded.  I had to pick him up out of the zinnias.

My children are on summer vacation.  Now is the time when I remember how content I felt when we homeschooled them years ago.  There is nothing like the feeling of a child wanting waffles for breakfast and saying yes because you have all the time in the world…….

Grace wants to be like Beatrix Potter.  She came downstairs for breakfast with these things in her hands….sketch book, drawing pencils, her latest paperback, and a horse (her model for the drawings)….I encouraged her to try to be HERSELF and not a copy of an original.  “I don’t know how.”  I can so relate.  We live in a world that is full of information and great ideas, it’s hard to even know who we are in the midst of so many people.  Well, we do have similarities, but God made us unique and different, too.  The little something he gave to Beatrix Potter is apparently within my daughter, too.  We’ll see what she does with it.

Speaking of growing, Sarah is steadying gaining new marks on her growth line.  I do need to wash this wall a little though.

Conversation during Waffle-Making:

David, chewing on waffle:  “I wonder if we’ll ever get a new baby.”
Me: making waffles with my back toward him:  “Um.No, the baby factory is closed.  The baby factory is tired.”
David, finding my answer unsatisfactory:  “Hmmf.  Just think of all the babies that will never be born because YOU do not have the COURAGE to have them.”

*****

Look up today, you who are dried and withered plants.  Open your leaves and flowers and receive God’s heavenly watering.  Charles H. Spurgeon