Tend Love Like Roses
Updated: Oct 3
There Is a Secret Garden Within Each of Us
There is a secret garden within each of us. A place where love, like a rose, must be tended. If left in neglect, it withers, its petals browning at the edges, its fragrance fading into the wind. But where it is nurtured, pruned with care, and given light, it flourishes.
Learning from the Garden
"Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow."
F. Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
These words are more than a poetic reminder about gardening. They speak of the heart, about love, and about what we choose to nurture in our lives.
When I walk through a garden, especially a wild one, where little pink roses climb freely over an old stone wall, something stirs within me. The wind plays with the petals, the sunlight dances through the leaves, and for a moment, I sense the sheer artistry of our loving Abba Father. It’s as if His hand has painted this place, tenderly shaping every bloom, every blade of grass. And I wonder, does love feel this way?
To be in love, to love deeply, is it like walking through a garden that has been carefully tended, where beauty overflows, uncontained yet not chaotic?
A Garden of the Soul
Jung wrote about the garden of the soul. He saw it as a symbol of the Self - our inner world, where unconscious and conscious meet. A place that must be cultivated, or else it becomes overgrown with weeds of fear, resentment, and neglect. The Bible speaks of this too in Proverbs 4,23:
"Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."
Guarding the heart is not about building walls, but about cultivation - pulling weeds, watering what’s good, and allowing the light of truth to reach even the shadowed places.
God - the Gardener
And what of God’s love?
It is always tending. Always reaching. Always quietly at work, even when we cannot see what He is doing.
Even when we forget to water our own gardens, He does not forget. He kneels in the soil, hands in the dirt, tending the places we have neglected, protecting the fragile shoots, pruning what no longer gives life, and coaxing new growth from what seems lifeless. He is not frightened by the tangled places within us. He does not turn away from the barren soil or the forgotten corners. He knows what is still capable of blooming.
Sometimes His work is almost imperceptible. A little more patience. A softened heart. The courage to face something we once avoided. A desire to forgive. A longing to pray again. A sudden glimpse of beauty where we had stopped looking. These may seem like small things, but gardens grow this way - one new shoot at a time.
Jesus tells us in John 15,5:
"I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit."
The life flows from remaining connected to the Vine.
Perhaps this is one of the deepest invitations of the garden: not to become our own gardeners, controlling every season and forcing every flower to bloom, but to remain close to the One who knows the soil of our hearts better than we do.
God’s love is never passive. He tends - we respond. He gives life - we receive it. He invites us to cultivate what He has planted.
We are never alone.
We are co-gardeners with Him, learning to notice what needs watering, what needs pruning, what needs patience, and what is quietly beginning to bloom.
St. Faustina records many moments and visions that can be understood as the image of the soul as a field or garden cultivated by God, the Gentle Gardener.
Relationships grow through presence. And presence needs time - not simply time that is counted (chronos), but time that is truly lived (kairos): time spent with one another, with another person, and with God.
Flax reminds me of how God works in our lives: through patience, struggle, and transformation, He forms something good within us. It also reflects, in a quiet way, the depth of Mary - Her simplicity, humility, and the beauty hidden in ordinariness.
The words virtue and virtues may sound outdated - relics of ancient philosophy or dusty catechisms. But beneath their formal tone lies a vibrant language of happiness, transformation, and inner strength.
Tend Love Like Roses Daily
But do I tend love the way He does? Do you?🌸
Tending love is an act of daily care. It is patience when irritation arises. It is choosing to see beauty where others see inconvenience. It is offering kindness not just when it’s easy, but when it costs something. It is pruning - cutting away selfishness, pride, and fear so that something greater can bloom.
Imagine your heart as a garden. What grows there? Have you watered the roses, or have thistles taken root? And if there are thistles, will you take Abba’s hand and begin the work of tending again?
Because love, like a rose, is not just planted once.
It is nurtured. It is watched over. It is given light.
My Own Secret Garden
🌸What part of my heart needs tending today?
🌸What "weeds" might be choking my ability to love well?
🌸Where is God already kneeling in the soil of my life?
"And where you tend a rose, love will always grow."
🌿🩷 Invitation to the Heart
Do you tend love as He does - patiently, daily, gently?
Let this question linger.
Let it take root.
To see more love for Jesus blooming in a spark, read the other post:
💮🤍💮
Thank you for being here and spending a little time with me. 💛
I’m grateful for every woman who stops by, reads a few words, pauses for a moment, and perhaps carries one little thought with her into the rest of the day.
Blessings & Hugs,
BE 💕
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