Have you ever grown something, like maybe vegetables, fruit, or flowers?

You plant a seed, making sure it’s in the right spot for that particular kind of seed so that it will get the right amount of shade and sunlight.  You tend the ground around the seed, you water it, feed it, and then you wait, having faith that because you planted this seed and you are taking care of it, and making sure it has the nourishment it needs, that it will grow and flourish and produce nourishing vegetables, good fruit, or a beautiful flower.

As you watch it sprout from the ground, you continue to tend to it.  You take care in watering it just the right amount, you feed it the “food” it needs so it will have the perfect amount and right kind of nutrients.  You weed the area so as it’s growing and becoming bigger it won’t be crowded out of its spot before it’s big enough.  You continue to do these things and patiently watch it grow and get bigger and stronger.  The more it grows the more you’re able to feel confident in its ability to continue growing and becoming what it was meant to become.

Pretty soon you have a beautiful flowering plant, or an amazingly fruitful garden.  And you have that because you nourished it and fed it and tended to it with loving care.  Without that care it wouldn’t have become the strong, flourishing garden it is.

Now apply this story or principle to the relationships in your life.

Each one is unique. Each one has the beautiful potential to become a flourishing fruitful “garden” of opportunity and love.  As you nourish and tend to the relationships in your life with love and care, you will see them begin to grow and to develop and to become filled with fruitful joy.

Each thing you do to “feed” the relationships in your life strengthens them.  Each time you choose love or healing or forgiveness you strengthen the relationship connection.  The more you feed a relationship with love, the more it blossoms and the stronger the connection becomes.  And as you continue to feed it beautiful nourishment (love!) it continues to become a strength and a joy in your life.

You can’t expect a garden to grow if you don’t take care of it.  It will not flourish in a weedy stone filled waterless sunless spot.  So too are the relationships in our lives.  They will not flourish if we ignore them, if we don’t put time and care and love into nourishing and replenishing them.

SO … feed your garden!   Be a gardener!  Offer love and healing and forgiveness to those people who are close to you.  Look for ways to “fertilize” the relationships in your life.  If you know that someone close to you is struggling or stressed … ease their burden!  Find a way to give them relief.  Even if it’s just a hand squeeze or an “I love you” or a night out or doing the laundry so they can rest … whatever it is, it WILL feed the bond between you and it WILL be nourishment to their soul.

I have seen beautiful miraculous things come from love.  Love IS the sunlight that allows us to grow.  Love WILL nourish EVERY aspect of your life and the lives of those around you.  It is healing.  It is strengthening.  It is replenishing.  It is like a breath of fresh air in a world where there is no oxygen.  It IS the way to unity and peace.

If you struggle with just how to offer love to those around you … if you see that there’s a lack in a relationship you are part of … if you desire a stronger connection with someone you’re close to … LOOK FOR WAYS TO EASE BURDEN.  LOOK FOR WAYS TO LIGHTEN THEIR LOAD.  LOOK FOR WAYS TO SHOW LOVE.

In offering and spreading love to those within your influence, you are feeding and nourishing and healing the bond between you.

Instead of being offended or imagining a slight, or believing they’re out to get you, or being frustrated by their lack of caring … instead of those, why don’t you believe that they love you and just don’t know how to show it.  And so YOU can be the one to show love and offer grace when you’re able.  You can be the one to nourish the relationship because you desire that connection and that love.  Through giving it, you WILL receive it.  That is the way.  You offer and give what you desire, and then it DOES come back to you.

Choose love.  Choose to spread it.  Choose to see it.  Choose to feed the relationships in your life with as much love as you can muster.  It will produce beautiful fruit and it will FEEL good to have that love energy be more abundant in your life.

Love is healing.  Love is replenishing.  Love is like the sunlight to your, and everyone else’s, internal “gardens” … it helps us grow.  And growing is what we’re MEANT to be doing.

Choose to love and watch as it nourishes everything around you.