Soul Care: Why it matters

Lush Gardens, well watered and cared for plants are a great, living and tangible picture of soul care!  We cannot see our souls as we can see a plant!  But we can learn about caring for the soul from learning to care for plants.  God has taught me incredible and powerful lessons over the years as I have gardened, and learned to garden and care for plants. (Thank you to Brenda Payne, Karan McCreery, Jan Jenison, and Linda Underwood in particular for how they taught me about gardening and flowers.) Last Spring one of our professors actually gave us each a small plant to tend and care for over the semester, as we were in training as Spiritual Friends or Directors.  At the end of the semester we had to write a paper about what we had learned from both tending a plant, and tending souls and compare and contrast the two.  I loved that assignment.  My little plant went through some interesting times, but in May when I left it, it was 1 1/2 old and was flourishing. I had had to transplant it it had grown so much.

Below that plant is pictured at the end of July.  The water from sprinklers did not reach it, and in two months, 55 days, it is bone dry, and very dead!  Two months passes quickly, how many of us push through seasons longer than two months of neglecting our souls, neglecting time with God, time to rest, time to play and laugh, and stop and smell the flowers!  We put our heads down, and barrel through "just another day, or project, or week" only if we were to look up it would be months!   I know I have been guilty of this, even in this program and the intense schedule for study, it can be a temptation.   This plant was a shocking and clear picture to me of the importance of caring for our souls as we care for plants, daily, weekly, consistently--you can't put them on hold or you can, but at great cost!  If you could snap your finger, and your soul's condition would be manifest in a plant before you, what would it look like?  Well-watered, lush, beautiful?  Or wizened, dried, brittle, crisp?  Perhaps ask someone close to you?  Maybe they are feeling the impact of your "crisp, brittle" soul!
Our of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks, so what are your words betraying about the shape of your soul?

Lord keep me humble enough to realize that I am not a plastic plant that can go indefinitely without water or fertilizer, pruning or repotting!  I need constant care, teach me more and more what that is to be cared for by you, to care for others with your love and attentiveness.  Teach me to care for my own soul, and take responsibility for that in wisdom and discipline, and teach me when I must depend on others and be needy for the touch of another!