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The gardener's gift
The other day as I was walking up a path on the grounds of my apartment complex, I noticed tracks of lawn mowers on the grass—the gardeners had been working. But I noticed that the tracks, and the cut grass, stopped halfway up the slope. On the spot I thought, “Bummer! What a lazy bunch! Why did they stop mowing in the middle? Because they refused to do overtime? Did they just give up? Go on strike?”
Then I looked a bit closer—and immediately had the explanation. There was a wide swath of colorful little spring flowers growing in the lawn, and the gardeners had simply mowed around them, thus sparing the flowers decapitation and at the same time preserving the joy we see in these lovely messengers of life and beauty. Immediately all the judgmental, condemning thoughts dropped away, and were replaced by gratitude for the gardeners’ thoughtfulness. I mentally thanked them and praised their kindness.
I’m so grateful for Christian Science, which nudges us to look beyond appearances and to turn negative or limiting thoughts around in that way. From this experience I gained a lesson for the future: Watch how you think, and beware of misleading appearances.
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