Spring is the time when gardeners clean out their flower beds, fertilize their lawns and sow seeds for colorful summer blooms. It's this time of year when I look around and see evidence of laws of nature that never fail and that parallel in our own lives.
Last summer, for example, I planted a weeping rose tree that blessed the garden with fragrant pink blossoms. By late fall, it was time to prepare this graceful tree for the bitter cold Midwestern winter. This required digging up the rose, laying it down and covering it with mounds of soil. Before long, the winter arrived; and our tree was buried beneath 75 inches of snow during the course of the season. The wind whipped, and temperatures steadily dipped below zero. I often looked out my kitchen window wondering how my beloved rose tree was faring in the harsh outer conditions. Finally spring arrived, and the revealing took place. As my husband and I moved the soil away, a beautiful sight emerged. New red shoots were bursting from the stems. "It's alive," I shouted with joy. Indeed, the shoots were signs of strength and life that were always present beneath the surface regardless of severe outer conditions. While the winter snows hammered the tree, it was quietly rejuvenating stronger, healthier and ready to give its gifts to our garden.
Our current world situation might be compared to the long, harsh, cold winter. This is where we have the opportunity to cut away the dead wood in our thoughts and emotions and establish stronger roots in consciousness. While we may need to rest while fertilizing our minds with new ideas, within us are contained the sprouts of growth that are ready to come up stronger than before. If we trust that Divine ideas are always germinating in our minds, we can allow them to grow and take form in our own life's conditions.
We can take another example from gardeners who spend winters envisioning what they will plant in the spring, including the color scheme, the shape and the focus of the garden. This is done with love and compliance with the laws of nature. Likewise, you can pay attention to what you would like to plant in the garden of your mind. What is the shape and scope of your thoughts, visualizations and speech? Create a mental picture, and comply with Universal Law by nourishing it with love and joyous expectation. We can further boost the growth of our mind's garden with faith and conviction.
The Goodness of God
Ernest Holmes tells us: "If we are to have an active faith - the faith of God instead of merely a faith in God - our thought must be centered in Universal Mind . . . No matter what the outside appearance, we must cling steadfastly to the knowledge that God is good."
Because we are programmed by mass consciousness to think of our lives in terms of what is going wrong in our world, we seldom think of the blessings and goodness of God. In reality, problems are the weeds that will choke out the buds of positive change if we let them. Instead of giving power to a problem and vitalizing it with fear and doubt, withdraw all sustaining energy to challenges you are facing. Affirm that Spirit's love and wisdom is guiding you at every moment, and live confident that this is true.
Remember that every time you think or feel negation, you are dishonoring the God-presence in you. When we love the Divine Mind with every particle of our being, all is added to us and more love, truth and wisdom is revealed.
Seeds of Change
You can make a choice to be the master gardener of your mind, and your life. Reject negative messages. Refuse to entertain doubt. Nurture the seeds of greatness that are already planted in you. Enjoy a life abundant with blossoms of joy, beauty and love. Relish each season of your life and kindly tend to the sprouts of newness in your mind. For sowing seeds of positive change reaps a consciousness of love, peace and joy in our individual lives and in the world.
Barbara Gulbranson is a spiritual coach, author, speaker and New Thought minister. She is the founder of Live Your Joy Institute, a non-profit teaching center devoted to spreading love and light through education and practical application of spiritual principles. Barbara's critically acclaimed books, LIVE YOUR JOY: HOW TO AWAKEN FROM SPIRITUAL SLUMBER, and HOW TO ATTRACT YOUR SOUL MATE: THE SECRETS OF LASTING LOVE, are changing the lives of thousands of people around the world.
For more about the author's books and classes and for free gifts such as downloads, book study guides and newsletters, visit http://www.liveyourjoy.org
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