Gardens along the way...37...an old song...

 Gardens along the way...37...an old song

“I come to the garden alone,

While the dew is still on the roses,

And the voice I hear falling on my ear

The Son of God discloses.

• Refrain:
• And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
• And He tells me I am His own;
• And the joy we share as we tarry there,
• None other has ever known.

He speaks, and the sound of His voice

Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,

And the melody that He gave to me

Within my heart is ringing.

I’d stay in the garden with Him,

Though the night around me be falling,

But He bids me go; through the voice of woe

His voice to me is calling.”

Charles Mills 1913...

This morning I received a note from an old friend asking how I was faring through this year of change, another sent out this song, another called to check in, yet another wrote a thank you for being in their lives...etc...etc. I wrote notes to others, commented on several Facebook entries ...etc...listened...

we are all so interconnected...we are part of someone else’s garden in life and they are part of ours ...it maybe next door, across the nation or on the other side of the world ...it may be a fleeting special time of life  or life long acquaintances or friends...it maybe family or not...it may be a word, a song, an all night vigil ...something has been planted in those gardens...to bloom and grow...sometimes an annual, sometimes a perennial...the landscape may change, the different design ...a desert, or the tropics...but the garden remains...

Hearing this old song again...soaking in the words...Jesus has been in those gardens along the way , speaking, listening, cultivating, growing, creating, comforting, coloring, pruning...all that a gardener does...and most of all just being...just there...a burden bearer, someone in which to confide, to encourage...thank YOU...

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

Genesis 2:15 

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day.....

Genesis 3:8a

“Like valleys they spread out, like gardens beside a river, like aloes planted by the Lord, like cedars beside the waters.

Numbers 24:6 

The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.

Isaiah 58:11 

“Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

Jeremiah 29:5-7 

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 

2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 

3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 

5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 

6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 

7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 

8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

John 15:1-8