I Come to the Garden Alone

            This week was a crazy week for my team. One of my teammates grandmothers passed away which was so sad because she was not there with her family, but praise the Lord she got to go home for the funeral. That in itself makes us put all our dependence on Him as a team because we were caught off guard and didn’t know what to do but to lean on Him. We had to continue to do the work here that we had to do, but also tend to her for the time she was here this week.  We were on property this week, which was a huge blessing so that she cannot miss out on a week where we were out in town doing ministry.

            On property, we were building a garden. We had to start from nothing and make it into something so beautiful. Monday, we started out bright and early and I looked around and next thing I know I am all by myself. Not a soul was in sight. It was so weird, I was just singing away and next thing I know I was singing and digging by myself. So, I just kept going. I thought that people would come back to help me, but they didn’t.

            That’s how it was all week. My other teammates always found something else on the property that needed to be done, so I just went to my garden alone. After about mid day Tuesday, I became weak from picking out rocks, glass, trash, getting bit by ants, and shoveling dirt all by myself. It’s such a hard, long process to do alone. I couldn’t stop, because if I did I knew that I would not want to start back up again, and I would be able to feel how much in pain I really was in. But I just always kept trucking along, because I knew in the end I would enjoy my new garden, and how good it was going to look.

But when we come to the Garden ALONE, that’s how HE speaks to us. In the beginning when all you can see is all the sin, addictions, things you KNOW need to go IN YOUR LIFE, you want to just leave it alone. You begin to believe that it is impossible to take the bad and ugly and turn it into something so good and beautiful. You believe it’s impossible for the Lord to turn you into a LIGHT for HIS kingdom because all you can see is the bad. But The Lord always is there to push us along. He never will leave you alone in the midst of it, no matter HOW alone you may feel. In Hebrews 13:5 He says to us, “ I will NEVER leave you. I will NEVER forsake you.”  If He tells us that, do you not believe that he will NEVER leave your side, even when you feel as if He is not there or when your digging through YOUR garden alone?

I can proudly say that with the strength of the Lord, I finished my beautiful garden. I planted three trees. I truly saw the work of the Lord in that garden. If he didn’t let me come to it alone everyday, then I wouldn’t have realized that HE CAN make beautiful things from anything and everything. He never left my side when I wanted to give up and just sit in the dirt. I placed my focus on him and what was to come from it, and He motivated me constantly, never giving me a CHANCE to quit. Let him make the beautiful creation that he wants to make out of you.