Gardens along the way....22...rock gardens...

 Gardens along the way...22...rock gardens...

Years ago it was all the rage to include a rock garden in your landscaping plans...the magazines showed how to use various plants to highlight rocks...then it almost became the norm as rocks are a great weed and moisture barrier...so many of the homes I walk by have either rock or bark mulch...some include large rocks as part of the landscaping ...

This my “waterless” “cactus” garden...painted rocks...

One of my grandsons’ rock garden...

Part of my rock garden...

Local rock house...and garden...

Today, as a celebration of my late husband’s birthday, I wanted to celebrate rock gardens....as a geologist, he had rocks....literally tons of them in storage units, piles at our office, display cases of them, boxes of drill samples, boxes of pulverized ones lining shelves, slides of them to look at under the microscope, buckets of “special” ones...some even in our yard along with antique mining equipment...

He started out with a pile in his parent’s yard as a child, something like one of my grandson’s pile until his father built him a special shed to house his growing collection...when I first met him, that was one of the places he showed me, his pride and joy of a rock collection...just a taste of the future ...

As a Christian, he liked verses associated with rocks...but, he was careful not to put his love of rock above his Love for 

God...and verses like these are highlighted in his Bibles...

and assign your nuggets to the dust, your gold of Ophir to the rocks in the ravines, then the Almighty will be your gold, the choicest silver for you.

Job 22:24-25 

“If I have put my trust in gold or said to pure gold, ‘You are my security,’ if I have rejoiced over my great wealth, the fortune my hands had gained,

Job 31:24-25 

Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. 

Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 

He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 

Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. 

Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you. 

Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in obedience to him and revering him. 

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land —a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills. 

When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. 

Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 

But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today. 

If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. 

Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God.

Deuteronomy 8:1-14,18-20 

He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.

Deuteronomy 32:4

The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

Psalm 18:2

But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”

Psalm 81:16 

24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

Matthew 7:24-27

Thank YOU for the rock loving husband You gave me and the father to our children...