Moss rocks

Visual people understand a message best when it is accompanied by a picture illustration. That's me. God wired me that way, so, He knows how to drive home a point with me.

Sitting on the stone bench in my garden this morning, I was trying to read the Word, pray and seek direction for the day. In a little while, I put my coffee down, closed my Bible and got up to walk the path and pray. I began by confessing what I know about God. He is great and greatly to be praised. I lay out my concerns to Him and I know that He can handle everything that occurs in my life today. Then, I prayed for the people He has put in my life and laid on my heart.

My ADD friends will understand this next step. My right brain friends will just have to bear with me... again. (BTW I love you for this.)

I shifted from walking and praying to digging up moss. As I began fitting the moss together between the stones on my path, God made an illustration for me.

First of all, when I told the landscapers that I wanted moss in my garden, they looked at me like I was speaking Martian. Then they gave each other that poor dillusional woman look. They simply could not behold the beauty in moss. To them it was more of a nuisance to be removed instead of something to be cultivated.

Some people are like the moss. There is a beauty in them that few can see and many would view them as a nuisance that need not be nurtured but should be shunned. A moldy mark on the landscape.

Moss comes in different shapes and colors. Some of it even has a scent to it. I have read about a moss that releases the scent of lemon thyme when it is stepped on. I am still looking for that one.

I am a lot like moss. Some have seen me as a moldy mark on the landscape of life. Shunned in Junior High and High school as a bad girl, I was involved in drugs, skipping classes and selling pills. I was an angry and rejected teen ager acting like a blight on society. I am thankful that the Gardener never lost sight of the beauty He saw in me.

Moss does not grow roots. It gets it's nourishment from the air. Like moss, I was always off the path, on the sidelines, growing up the side of a tree, a nuisance reaching into thin air for nourishment that could not be found anywhere else in my life. Never fitting anywhere in life. Disconnected.

As I dug my shovel into the etherial green gauze on the edge of my garden I looked for just the right spot to place it between the stepping stones. I observed that the blue-green stones, which are a delicate in color, almost blended in to the beige of the sand which held them in place. When I placed the rich green moss over the sand, however, the color of the stones popped in contrast. There also exists a delightful contrast in textures from the hard stone to the soft carpet-like fabric of the moss.

I began transplanting some of the moss a while ago and those first pieces have adhered to the stone already, looking quite natural and like they have always been there, although it does not yet come together to cover all the sandy spaces in between. This will be a lifetime endeavor.

I have been transplanted from the kingdom of darkness into the light of the Glorious Kingdom of God. (Col.1:13) I am still learning and growing. I am still trying to cling to the Rock. This will be a lifetime endeavor. In the mean time, I will be able to come to my garden whenever I have the chance and see the transformation happening. It helps me to remember that God is not finished with me yet.

Thanks for the visual, Lord.