One spring day I was digging a new spot to plant daffodils. I had purchased a place in the woods with a few acres, and it was a great little spot. However, the people who had built it were not gardeners, and I started a lot of new beds while I was there.
This particular day, I was digging up a spot around an old hollowed out tree stump that I had filled up with potting soil and used as a planter until the side rotted out and all the potting soil spilled out.
As I was digging, my shovel hit something hard that wasn’t a tree root. I decided to dig around it and see if I could pull it out.
As I widened the area around the object, I was thinking “What in the world is that?” After more digging and clearing off the soil, I was able to pull the object out.
It was the remnant of a statue of some sort. I took it into the greenhouse and took a tool to remove the dirt that was caked on. I was intrigued to see that it looked like a big section of an angel statue!
I took my shovel back out, and soon the area around the tree trunk became an archeological dig. At last count, I had unearthed at least 130 pieces of the statue.
Over the next few weeks, I worked on putting the angel back together. I used a piece of pvc pipe on a square of wood to stand her back up. Pieces of aluminum cans were glued to the inner walls of her hollow body to hold the broken pieces in place after they were glued. Gorilla Glue became a good friend!
With some ingenuity and a lot of persistence, I got the angel put back together and repainted. I tried to blend in the glued areas with the rest of her because years of being buried had given her a unique and beautiful patina.
I still have my Garden Angel. She could stand a little bit of work now because a wing broke again and had to be re-glued.
I feel a connection to my angel because I, too, have at points felt broken into pieces. At points it felt like I was buried and forgotten.
Thankfully, I was not forgotten. I didn’t stay “buried.” Family and friends stuck by and helped piece me back together. And always, the Lord kept whispering “I’ve got you. You’re going to be fine!”
Thoughts From the Garden 