In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape
you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life. James 1:21 (The
Message)
This morning I
bring my Bible, journal, and cup of tea into the garden. A light mist hangs
over the fields across the road, and I am surprised to see tender green shoots
of corn forming rows where yesterday there was nothing but dirt. All around me,
Dame’s Rocket thrusts purple and white spires toward the skies like holy hands
reaching toward heaven. Boxwood shimmers greenly in the breeze, and a yellow
weed at the fence line bursts into flame as a sunbeam peeks through the clouds.
The words of Psalm
63, my reading this morning, reverberate through my mind. “O God, thou art my
God, I seek thee, my soul thirsts for thee; my flesh faints for thee, as in a
dry and weary land where no water is.”
In the sanctuary
of this garden the desert landscape of my heart—that dry and dusty place where
worry and anxiety about my son, Joel, who has autism, sometimes threaten to
overwhelm me—turns to an oasis of green, flowing with streams of living water.
Prayer rises up within me as praise.
No wonder poets
and songwriters often refer to the garden as a metaphor for prayer.
And yet,
gardens are not always lush and beautiful. Think of the garden in the midst of
drought. Parched plants wilt. Green leaves turn to brown. What was abounding in
exuberance just weeks before suddenly sags under the weight of cloudless skies
with no promise of rain in sight. Nothing will revive the drought-stricken
garden like a soft, gentle, soaking rain.
It is no
different for the gardens of our hearts. Sometimes, in the words of my son Joel
at the end of a major melt-down, “We need Jesus!”
As the
mother of a son with autism, I was first drawn more deeply into prayer because
of an intense thirst for God’s presence. I was desert-thirsty, parched for the
living waters Jesus promises in John 4:14: “.
. . but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never
thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water
welling up to eternal life.”
The more I spend time with God the more the garden of my
heart blooms with an unquenchable love for the things of the Spirit. I need
God’s presence just as my garden needs the rain.
Take some time today
to be quiet and meet with God. Listen to what rises up from within. Have a
conversation with God. You may have questions to ask Him. Ask, expecting to
receive an answer. Tell Him what’s on your heart. Be honest with Him. Bare your
vulnerable places. And then, once you’ve emptied your heart, simply listen. He
has much to say to you.
Lord, I thank you and praise you
for your living waters. Open me up, Lord. Open me up to your thirst-quenching
presence. Water me, Lord. Water me.
·
Where do you most often meet God? Nature? Bible
study? Service? Worship? Journaling?
·
How might you establish a pattern of going there
to pray on a consistent basis?
·
In what way do you most often pray? Do you feel
“pot-bound”? Might God be calling you to a new prayer avenue?
·
What kind of prayer will help you more often to
be aware of Jesus’ presence with you?
Excerpted from The Spiritual
Art of Raising Children with Disabilities (Judson Press, 2014)
Used with permission
The mother of a 29-year-old son
with autism, Kathleen Bolduc is a
spiritual director in Oxford, Ohio, and The Spiritual
Art of Raising Children with Disabilities and Autism
& Alleluias. Kathy blogs at www.specialneedsparenting.net.
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Join Kathy at a free webinar: The Spiritual Art of Raising Children with Disabilities: Learning to Let Go and “Be” - Thursday, May 22nd, at 1 pm. If you can’t attend at that time, register and participate at your leisure. You are promised an hour of rest and refreshment using art, music, and Scripture. Sign up here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/381076121
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2 comments:
This is a timely passage as spring finally arrives after a long, hard winter. I probably see God most clearly in a woods or under a dark, starry sky. I am a sibling rather than a parent of an adult with special needs, and my parents didn't share with me or my other siblings their struggles to accept having a child with Down Syndrome. Our family was different from every other family I knew, and to this day Karen's needs have had an enormous impact on the rest of us (I am her legal guardian).
I didn't get my e-mail address in my comment: alien.wrtr@gmail.com
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