Dry soil the consistency of powdered sugar puffed itself back into the hole. Half of every new shovelful I dug out of the hole was dirt I'd already dug out once before. The task seemed endless.
Inserting a few more flowers into the front bed to fill it out seemed like such a reasonable idea in theory. In practice it was proving frustrating. One end of the front flower bed proved to be compacted, rock-like clay and now at the other end of the front bed, finer grained than sand, the soil wouldn't hold together at all. The only thing the two sides of the bed had in common? They made the Sahara look moist by comparison.
I begin to understand why one of the foundation plantings is a cactus.
I wanted to fill in the flower beds, but I had failed to note the reason the existing plantings didn't flourish. They lacked water. Once watered the existing plants will start to perk up and fill in for themselves.
There are times when we charge ahead in life like that. We notice a deficiency in someone's life and we offer to correct that situation without looking for the underlying issue. We just charge in and start planting flowers, or offering advice, or trying to fill a need... forgetting that without the Water of Life -- Living Water -- nothing flourishes. We might be surprised to find how everything else fills itself in when that need is filled.
If you need me, I'll be watering the garden.
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