I’m a retired educator who is dedicated to showing the love of God to others through my hobbies: gardening, music and enjoying the Word of God. What I do is different in that, through my hobbies, I am able to demonstrate how my love for Jesus, who is Lord and Savior of my life, influences me everyday.
I am committed to fulfilling the Great Commission to all who visit this website. I do this as I write about my everyday experiences and how God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit makes for a happy and fulfilling life (Matthew 22:37-40)!
Where Do I Start?
I was looking at my mailbox the other day and a thought came to me. The mailbox garden looks so different today than it did in the Spring! When you look at your garden, go to the park, or visit a botanical garden in your area do you notice the differences in the beauty that is presented to you over the various seasons? Each season brings changes in the garden and the changes are all beautiful. (Genesis 1: 11-13)
Spring Time!
I love Spring! It’s the time to start planting again and to see plants that were planted before starting to show up! Suddenly, there is a welcoming burst of color as flowers begin to bloom! You feel a lift in your spirit as you view the beauty. I look at my mailbox in the Spring. One year there are a multitude of yellow pansies and tulips blooming; so bright and cheerful! 
Another year, the mailbox garden is full of tulips, hyacinths, and snapdragons. Isn’t it wonderful that the mailbox garden does not have to have the exact same plants, placed in exactly the same place for the garden to be beautiful?
We are all God’s children! We are all uniquely different and so beautiful. Romans 12:3-8 and 1 Peter 4:10-11 says that God has given each of us gifts to be used for His glory. Just as each flower contributes to the beauty of the mailbox garden, so do your giftings contribute to the body of Christ. God did not make a mistake when He created us. As with the mailbox garden, we show the beautiful handiwork of God as we live our individual lives. All the plants in the garden come together to produce a wonderful picture. So do we, as a people, show God’s wonderful nature when we believe and trust in Him, which then reflects in the way we live!
Summer Time!
My mailbox garden in Summer is filled with gladiolas, petunias, geraniums, coreopsis, and snapdragons (..still hanging in there from spring). The tulips and hyacinths have long gone dormant and the gladiolas have taken over the mailbox garden.
A funny thing here. When I first planted the gladiolas, I did not know much about their growing habits. I have since tried to move them from the mailbox garden every year. I give away bulbs to friends and neighbors but there are always some smaller bulbs left back in the garden. These bulbs then grow and keep producing flowers! I love the beautiful gladiola flowers! I use them in the beautiful bouquets I have in my home. However, they tend to hide other plants due to their height.
Back to the summer mailbox garden. It looks beautiful. This is the season to not only admire the beautiful flowers but also to keep them looking fresh and beautiful. So you have to deadhead the spent flowers, weed as necessary, handle bugs that come around, and keep plants watered! There is a lesson here about learning about the plants before planting them! Knowing how much God loves us makes us want to show that love in the everyday things we do, in and out of the mailbox garden. It’s like what is said in Colossians 2:6-7 “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, 7 rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.” Not only do we maintain the garden to keep it growing and looking beautiful, we also have to build up our lives in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!
“As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, 7 rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.”
It is Fall!
Fall is also a beautiful season to see my mailbox garden. The gladiolas have once again been removed (though I know the baby bulbs are still hidden in the soil and will show up next year!) and the chrysanthemums and snapdragons are blooming. It’s the season to plant flowers that can withstand the cooler weather and also time to plant bulbs for spring flowering. I don’t do a lot of work at my mailbox garden in the fall. I lay down a lot of mulch to overwinter the bulbs (and keep weeds out), plant a few flowers, and keep the garden watered (but not as much as in the summer months). This is usually a more laid back time for me at the mailbox garden. I enjoy the change the Fall season brings. There is a season in life when you just need to take time to relax. Relaxing does not mean stepping away from living a Godly life! We are just growing and relaxing in the love of God! We are allowing Him to work in us so that we then see the product of that work in us as we perform our everyday lives. (Philippians 2:12-13)
Winter!
I live in Zone 8 so Winter is the season to relax and meditate on changes that took place in the mailbox garden this year and what future changes might be needed. 1 Timothy 4:12-16 has a wonderful message about being an example to others in how you live, how you grow in the knowledge of God and our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, how to continue to serve with the unique gift you have, and how you need to meditate and grow. So as I view the mailbox garden, I meditate on the work that God has been and still is doing in my life as well in the garden. The garden is not lush as in Spring and Summer, it does not have the beauty as in Fall, but it still has its own winter beauty. In my area, we may get one or two days of snow, if any. Then the garden is white but it soon melts away. So this season has its own beauty. As I said before, we are all God’s children! We are all uniquely different and yet are so beautiful!
Finally!
Whatever the season of life that you may be in, Hebrews 13:5 says “Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” I know that my Saviour, Jesus Christ, is always with me no matter what season I may be going through. He sees the bulbs that are now covered in the mailbox garden just as He sees us and knows everything about us. Psalm 139:1-18 gives us a beautiful picture of how God knows all about us, from before we were born through eternity! Read it!
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2 thoughts on “Seasons in The Life of a Mailbox Garden”
Id like to thank you for the efforts you have put in penning this website. Im hoping to check out the same high-grade content from you in the future as well. In fact, your creative writing abilities has motivated me to get my own website now 😉
I want to to thank you for this good read!! I certainly loved every little bit of it. I have you bookmarked to look at new things you postÖ
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