And when the men of that place recognized Jesus, they sent word to all the surrounding country. People brought all their sick to him and begged him to let the sick just touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched him were healed. [Mat 14:35-36]
I put on my pink plastic garden shoes and headed for regular morning garden inspection. Down the steps, turning right on the gravel path just after the lavender, the bright blue sky made me glance upward just as my right foot stepped forward and immediately sank. 
Shocked, I pulled up on my foot. The mud pulled and sucked as my shoe came free, leaving a three inch deep outline. Immediately, I knew what had to be done.
Taking one giant step over the problem area I headed toward the tool shed, returning with a shovel and plastic box of repair pieces. I scraped the orange gravel to the side of the path and began digging gently around the foot print. Lifting the mud onto bare dirt, I continued probing with the tip of the shovel down into the slimy mess. Two more gentle pushes, and I met pay dirt. A firm resistance told me to pull back the large shovel and use the hand trowel to dig further down into the mud.
I dropped to my knees and began to lift the wet mud out of the growing hole. Closer to the ground, I could see the large area of dirt that had been absorbing water throughout the week from a leak somewhere underground in our precious drip system. Scoop by scoop, silt and slime accumulated onto a pile by my side.
I tried to imagine the leak in the blue irrigation tubing that had caused such a mess. My knees were soaking wet, and every time I lifted out a scoop of mud, a tiny oozing landslide filled the hole again. Eventually, the hole growing wider, I reached moist dirt that held firm banks, and I was able to dig more forcefully toward the nasty leak.
As I exposed the tube and wiped the mud off, I looked for the clean water drip that marked the exact spot for repair. There it was. A prick, a pin hole, a speck of a hole letting one drop at a time squeeze out. One drip after another, the water had saturated three feet of pathway, softening the dirt and making a hidden trap for me on my morning walk.
On my knees, my thoughts turned to Jesus as He preached in the desert. How his words must have offered such refreshment to parched souls. How tiny his words must have seemed at first, like the small drips coming from the blue tube. But how powerful they were! They came without end, one after the other, softening the soil of human existence, spreading out over the landscape, ready to pull passing people into God’s inner circle of love.
Water Power in my garden showed me the tremendous strength of God’s Love Power. It is ever so quiet, but drop by drop, it softens our hearts and offers the life-saving drink of salvation.
PRAYER: Let me drink in the cool refreshment of God’s Word each day.
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Meditations: In the Garden
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