Pruning Trees

There is a land which consists entirely of one large garden within which is one Mansion. The garden is vast and goes far beyond what the eye can see. Some parts of this garden are wilderness and other parts are gorgeous, some parts are humble but beautiful in their own quiet way. The garden reflects the interests and work of the gardeners. Each gardener is given certain plants to care for by the Master Gardner. Some of the gardeners do a nice jobs, others are no good at all, and some are in between. This story is about a gardener named Richard who lived in a fairly nice section of the garden near the Mansion.

Three Stories

Happy Canary

Photo credit unknown

Under the blue sky was a hill, and on the hill a house, and in the house a table, and on a table a bird cage, and in the cage a canary, and the canary belonged to a girl who loved to hear it sing.

"Sing to me birdy" she said

So the bird sang and that song went out the cage, over the table, out the house, down the hill to a little old man who was quite sad. The man heard it and said

"Oh how beautifull that is, it sounds sweet to my great old ears."

So he went up the hill, found the house and saw the table, bird cage, bird and the little girl.

"What a sweet little bird you have there dear child." said the old man.

"Oh yes she is a darling, she sings to me every day when I aks her and makes me happy."

"Ah, it is a good thing to be happy. I am a sad old man, a little bird like that would make me happy."

"Do you like her?" the girl asked "You can have her if you like. I have had her a long time now and she has made me so happy. I am sure she could make an old man like you happy too. Take her, she is my girft to you."

So the old man did. He took the bird out of the cage and set her on his shoulder. Then he walked down the hill with his new friend singing all the way, and he was happy.

The girl watched th ean go and a warm feeling crept into her heart. She was glad she could give somebody so much joy.

Plants

       There are three plants growing in the ground. They are all three slender and fragile easily crushed by anything. One grows straight up towards the light confident in the way it is going. Another grows up for a little while and then plummets back down to the earth. The last one is a pitiful sight, all confused and growing in nearly every direction except up.
        These plants represent the human race. Some are doing fine, they grow up and know what their living for. These people are the plant growing straight up. Others are going good for a while but then hit some bump or tragedy and plummet back down to the pit like the second plant and are depressed. The others are like the little confused plant. They look around for comfort, searching for meaning in anything they can find except for the One who can help them.