Taking Care of Eden

Every year around this time I have the pleasure of taking care of a friend's garden while he and his wife are on vacation for two weeks. While it is not a huge garden, this is no small task for after his family, this garden is his most cherished possession! So every summer as I begin this task I pray, "Please dear Lord don't let me kill anything!" And for the most part that prayer is answered.
Now, I do enjoy gardening, but the watering of this small Eden usually comes at the end of an eleven hour work day; wrestling with garden hoses, thorny bushes that need to be maneuvered around to get to those hoses(I still have the scar from the puncture wound one of these killer bushes inflicted on me last summer) and such are the last things I want to be doing.
Yesterday was one of those days I prayed for rain so that I could skip a day; God had other plans.
He also must have been a bit bored because He decided to have some fun at my expense! The nozzle for the garden hose was being extremely uncooperative. No matter how hard I tried, it refused to to work properly. After 10 minutes of wrestling with this thing, my work clothes becoming increasingly wet(yes, I forgot to bring a change of clothes), and working up a very uncomfortable sweat, I finally managed to get this ornery piece of equipment to work. Any of the neighbors within earshot would have heard me whining to our Lord about how I don't really have the time nor patience for this right now; I was tired, hungry and getting crankier by the minute!
When all was said and finally done, I was about to just storm out of there and head home. I then realized that one of the perks of taking on this not so little job is that I can also enjoy its beauty. I had my Magnificat with me and hadn't done Evening Prayer yet. I sat myself down, put myself in God's presence and proceeded with my prayer. It may have only been about 15 or 20 minutes, but God repaid me for all my trouble with those peaceful, restful moments.
Taking care of our Creator's Creation has it's ups and downs, but He also gives us great pleasure and enjoyment in it if we take the time to see it.
If you have managed to read this far, you realize that there really is no point to these musings except for that one thing; taking the time and sometimes the effort to stop and enjoy the roses and anything else that may be planted.
Taking care of this garden entails some hard work, but it also has its rewards. Unfortunately the delicious Jersey tomatoes my friend grows aren't one of them yet~too early in the season for them. Hopefully I can talk him out of a few when they are ready.
The moral of this story? Take time to smell the roses, the impatiens, the hydrangea or whatever may be growing in your or a friends little Eden.