🌿 Mystical Gardens Tale 🌿 The Cooling Waters Jill had decided that summer had officially become personal. The heat had been unbearable for days. Not the pleasant kind of summer warmth that made people want to sit outside with a cold drink. This was the kind of heat that seemed to crawl beneath your skin and stay there. Jill woke up irritated. She stepped outside and immediately began sweating. “Wonderful,” she muttered. “It's going to be another one of those days.” Her car wouldn't start. “Of course it won't.” The air conditioner at work wasn't working properly. “Of course it isn't.” Someone had left a door open, letting hot air into the building. “Who does that?” Then someone accidentally bumped into her in the hallway. “Watch where you're going!” The woman stopped and stared at Jill. “I'm sorry.” Jill walked away without answering. She didn't notice the hurt look on the woman's face. By lunchtime, Jill was ready to scream. The restaurant was crowded. Someone's child was crying. A man at the next table was talking too loudly. The waitress brought Jill the wrong drink. “This isn't what I ordered.” “I apologize. I'll get you another one.” “And could you please get it right this time?” The waitress's smile disappeared. Jill didn't notice. Or perhaps she did, but she was too irritated to care. Everything seemed to bother her. A phone ringing. A dog barking. Someone chewing too loudly. A car driving too slowly. A person looking at her for what Jill was certain was too long. “What are you looking at?” she snapped. The man quickly looked away. By late afternoon, Jill was exhausted. And angry. Mostly angry. She couldn't even explain why anymore. All she knew was that everything was getting on her nerves. Then, on her way home, Jill saw something she hadn't seen before. A narrow path between two old trees. It hadn't been there yesterday. Jill stopped. She stared at it. Beyond the trees was a faint green glow. Normally, she would have walked away. But today she was hot, tired, frustrated, and completely out of patience and whatever was there had to be better than here, so she stepped onto the path. Within moments, the world changed. The heat disappeared. Jill stopped walking. A cool breeze brushed across her face. She closed her eyes. “Oh…” She hadn't realized how badly she needed that. The garden stretched out before her. Tall trees formed a canopy overhead. Little streams wound between moss-covered stones. Flowers opened beneath the shade, and somewhere nearby, water trickled over smooth rocks. There were no car horns. No ringing phones. No barking dogs. No crying children. No voices demanding anything from her. Just quiet. Beautiful, peaceful quiet. Jill sat beside the stream and dipped her hands into the cool water. For the first time all day, her shoulders relaxed. She took a deep breath. Then another. And suddenly, something uncomfortable happened... She began remembering. The woman in the hallway. “Watch where you're going!” The waitress. “Could you please get it right this time?” The man at the restaurant. “What are you looking at?” Her coworker. “Who does that?” One memory after another came rushing back. Jill lowered her head. “Oh no.” She hadn't simply been having a bad day. She had been handing that bad day to everyone around her. She had taken her frustration, her discomfort, and her exhaustion and thrown them at people who hadn't caused any of it. The garden remained silent. But Jill had the strange feeling that the giant tree at the center of the garden was watching her. “I was miserable,” she whispered. A leaf drifted down beside her. Jill picked it up. “I was hot. I was tired. Everything was going wrong.” She sighed. “But that doesn't mean I had to make everybody else miserable too.” The breeze moved gently through the branches. Jill smiled sadly. “You know what's worse?” She looked toward the path. “I don't even know if any of them deserved an apology from me.” She paused. “Of course they do.” For the first time that day, Jill laughed at herself. She had spent hours thinking everyone else was the problem. But the garden had given her something the heat never could. Perspective. Jill stood. “I can't undo what I said.” She looked toward the great tree. “But I can go back and do better.” The garden seemed to grow a little brighter. Jill stepped onto the path. The heat returned when she reached the other side. But something inside her had changed. The temperature hadn't changed. Her circumstances hadn't changed. Her car was still broken. The air conditioner still wasn't working. Tomorrow might be just as hot. But Jill wasn't going to let the heat decide who she was. The next morning, she found the woman from the hallway. “I'm sorry,” Jill said. The woman looked surprised. “For yesterday. You didn't deserve the way I spoke to you.” Then Jill found the waitress. She apologized there too. And when someone accidentally bumped into her later that afternoon, Jill felt irritation rising inside her. She opened her mouth. Then stopped. She took a breath. “It's okay,” she said. The person smiled. And Jill smiled back. That evening, Jill returned to the garden. She sat beneath the great tree with her feet beside the cool stream. “Thank you,” she whispered. She finally understood something the garden had been trying to teach her. Sometimes we are uncomfortable. Sometimes we are tired. Sometimes the world seems to be working against us. And sometimes we have every reason to be frustrated. But our circumstances may explain why we're hurting without giving us permission to hurt someone else. The garden could cool Jill's skin. But only she could choose to cool the anger in her heart. And that choice was worth far more than a cool breeze. Seed from the Garden “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.” — Proverbs 15:1 You may not be able to control the heat, the noise, the traffic, the broken air conditioner, or the things other people do. But you can choose what you do with the frustration those things create inside you. Before you hand your bad day to someone else, stop. Breathe. Cool down. And remember: They may not be the reason you're hurting. Don't make them pay for it. #christianwriter #christianfiction #christianfantasy #stacyfrantz #MysticalGardens