Gardens

I can't believe it's been two whole weeks since I wrote in this BLOG.  I guess that explains the downturn in readership this past week :). 

The topic is gardens.  And I chose that topic because -- well, because I am loving my large garden -- the garden that the landscape committee has made available for the residents of my community.  Second, I just read a book by Francine Rivers, entitled "Loeta's Garden."    It is happy and sad and, yes, I cried a lot while I was reading this book.  First, because it so well describes the plight of a person with arthritis, but because it also made me aware of how unkind I've been throughout my life, so I shed tears of grief while asking God for forgiveness for how I treated my own mother and father, unintending to be unkind, but seeing my rush to do things and control things as being so very unkind to them in life and in death. 

How wonderful it is to have a forgiving father!

I do recommend the book, heartily.  But be prepared for some heart searching and lots of tears.

There is one part of the book that I want to remember for years to come, and since I read so many books, I thought I'd write it down.

Ms. Rivers says about gardens:  Man fell in the Garden.  You (meaning our Lord) taught in a garden.  You (the Lord, Jesus)prayed in a garden.  Your passion in a garden.  You were betrayed in a garden, You arose in a garden.  Then she adds: I love this garden, for wen I sit out here, I see the wonder of  Your creation.  I smeel the earth and flower-scented air, and it soothes me.  It reminds me taht Your hand is in it all.  I heard the voice of the Lord in the garden, calling to me.

I know that might not impress a lot of people, but it impresses me.  I always loved that my mother had a garden and she loved that garden, and I know I did as well.  I imagined here, for the many later years in her life when she was ill, that she would take one last walk in her garden and God would take her to be with him.  Sadly, that was not the case, she died in a drug-induced sleep, but I know where she is now.  And I still imagine her in her healthier days, walking in her garden, conversing with her Lord.

Walking in the garden in the morning when the dew was on her roses.  And I know she was listening for her Savior's voice as she walked among her plants.  I have a daughter who used to walk in our yard and do that same thing.  She'd walk and talk with the Lord and come in refreshed from those times of communion with Him, the Savior of her soul.  She, my daughter, still remembers those walks.  Her time will come again, when the hustle and bustle of child-rearing is over, and she can once again, go into her own garden and meet with her Master.

I have a sun-room.  That's where I go to commune with Him.  And from that room and I can view the garden where I live.  It is especially beautiful this year, more beautiful than I can ever remember the October garden being.

Thank you Lord for your creation.

ttfn