I’ve been spending a lot of time in Psalm 23 lately. You’re likely familiar with this passage that is a mainstay at funerals (and movies featuring funerals). In this quintessential psalm, the psalmist (King David) recalls God’s presence in the midst of life’s darkest valleys: even in the foreboding shadows, when death feels imminent and grief is all-consuming, David is comforted by the nearness and guidance of the Shepherd.

Those dark valleys are often the focal point of the psalm, and I personally have found the psalmist’s comfort-in-the-valley visual to be a beacon of hope when the encroaching darkness is at its most oppressive. But this month, as I studied and read and prayed through Psalm 23, it was verse 6 that I kept returning to. The Message version of this verse reads, “Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life,” and I’ve not been able to shake the image of the Lord hovering over me with a watering pail of blessings that are being sprinkled over me as I move through my days.

Clearly my imagination has no problem mixing its metaphors, as Shepherd seamlessly slips into Gardener to tend to this sheep-turned-flower bed. But an interesting commonality between a tended sheep and a watered garden is that neither asked to be cared for. It is not incumbent upon the sheep to request that the shepherd lead him beside still waters. A flowerbed does not need to beg the gardener for liquid sustenance. Both are at the mercy of their caregivers, and both are the passive recipients of unearned nurturing and care.

We may pray for God’s blessings on our lives, and I believe He delights in answering our expressed prayers. But often—more often than we could ever comprehend—He showers us with blessings that are far beyond our requests or even our imaginations. From the sun that rises each morning without the help of a single human, to the synapses firing in our brains and allowing us to feel pleasure and joy, to the minute hurdles and stumbling blocks that direct us towards happier opportunities—our Lord is always at work, orchestrating these blessings of beauty and love that chase after us each day.

My life has been filled with answers to prayers I never presumed to ask, blessings I wouldn’t have imagined for myself. I could fill volumes with examples of His unanticipated kindnesses in this past year alone, with the story of Nico’s unexpected conception and miraculously healthy birth headlining the list of unmerited gifts heaped over our family. My garden of blessings has flourished in ways that are obvious for all to see, and also in ways still undetected by me but undoubtedly just as lovely and reflective of the Gardener’s compassionate caretaking.

As we head into this Thanksgiving week, I hope you are able to recognize a few of the ways that the goodness and mercy of our Heavenly Father have been chasing after you. Whether you are walking through a darkened valley or flourishing in cool streams of ease and abundance, know that the Lord is with you and He is for you. He is pursuing you with all manner of unexpected and undeserved goodness. Join me this week in lifting up prayers of thanksgiving to our Good Shepherd, our Kindhearted Gardener, for ceaselessly caring for us all the days of our lives.