I Come to the Garden

Every morning at breakfast time, I look out our kitchen window into our neighbor's garden.  He often goes out to have breakfast with his wife in the garden.  After breakfast, he goes around watering the plants, and cultivating the soil.  His plants look amazingly healthy and happy and he has all kinds-- bonsai all lined up in one place; tomatoes, pumpkins, corn, other flowering plants, etc.  The garden extends all around his house and the rest of the yard is a carpet of bermuda grass.  Birds come to sing in the branches of the trees.  They seem to enjoy the garden as much as our neighbor does.  

I enjoy looking at the garden from our breakfast table but I often wonder how it would feel like to step into that garden to see the bonsai plants up close, smell the flowers and examine the details of each kind.  I envy the birds in the freedom they have to fly from one part of the garden to the other.  They sing and play and have no care in the world.  They need no permission to enter the garden… they just go and the gardener welcomes them for they add to the overall beauty and joy of the place.  It is what the gardener intended… to create a place of beauty and rest where birds and other creatures… and yes, even he himself can come to rest and enjoy the pleasures of BEING.  

Ah!  But this is just a picture of a greater reality I have with my Heavenly Father.  He has built me a garden so much more beautiful and restful than what my physical eyes can see.  I have a secret place that He cultivates for me to enter anytime without having to ask permission.  He welcomes it! He delights in it!  He invites me to come… not just for breakfast  when everything is new and fresh and joyful...but anytime of the day when I feel the heat of the burning sun or whenever I feel tired or lonely or deflated.  

There are so many things to DO in His garden.  I can walk with Him barefoot on the soft grass while He shows me the details of each plant, each flower, each fruit tree.  I can feast my eyes on the beauty of His creation.  I can touch the petals of a rose and smell its fragrance.  I can talk to Him and ask Him questions about things I don't understand.   I can sing with the birds and praise the Gardener with my heart for all the beautiful things He has put there for me to enjoy.  But most all, I can just BE STILL and be at rest as I gaze into the beauty of the Gardener and His unfailing love towards me. I marvel at the fact that He planted this special garden with the sole intention of fellowshipping with me... to ENJOY ME!  

The Gardener wants me to come often but even when I don't come the garden is there always waiting for me.  He faithfully tends it, cultivates it, creating more beautiful things for me to enjoy when I do come.  He is tireless and determined to lavish His love and creativity on me.  There is no end to His welcome and everyday I fall in love all over again with this One who who wakens me every morning to whisper,

"Get up, my dear friend, fair and beautiful lover—come to me!Look around you: Winter is over;  the winter rains are over, gone!  Spring flowers are in blossom all over. The whole world’s a choir—and singing!   Spring warblers are filling the forest with sweet arpeggios.. Lilacs are exuberantly purple and perfumed and cherry trees fragrant with blossoms.  Oh, get up, dear friend, my fair and beautiful lover—come to me!  Come, my shy and modest dove—leave your seclusion, come out in the open.  Let me see your face, let me hear your voice.  For your voice is soothing and your face is ravishing. "     (Song of Songs 2:10-14 The Message)

  

First Mother's Day in Nepal

      Celebrating Mother's Day with Tara's Mom and sisters turned out to be a great idea.  Tara and I just thought to prepare lunch for them but some came early and some came late and some who we thought would not come showed up bringing people who were uninvited.  Everyone ended up staying not just for lunch but all afternoon and early evening.  

I really find it hard to connect to Nepali people so it was awkward for me in the beginning but anything can happen when you wait a little while longer.  Always, if you are patient, the Holy Spirit will give you that prod that says, "Now!  You go and do that something I am telling you to do NOW."

      Earlier today, Tara went out to buy chicken and other things for the special meal and I asked him to buy flower bouquets  for the mothers.  There were no flowers for sale where he went so he climbed a tree to get some of its purple flowers!  I prepared the bouquets and included a card with Proverbs 31:30 written on it.  When I presented the bouquets, Tara's Mom and sisters appreciated it more than I expected.  Since this was the first Mother's Day event they have ever had in their lives, they didn't quite know what to expect and how to respond.  

       As an "outsider" to the culture, I was hesitant what I should do.  At the back of my mind, I was always considering if some things would be appropriate to do or not.  Anyway, I just thought it would be good to speak to my mom in-law first and just tell her what the Lord is telling me to say to her.  So I kind of prophesied over her with Tara translating.  I don't remember a lot about what I said… most of it was affirmation and an invitation to come to a place of rest… receiving the Father's love and forgiveness and enjoying the fruit of her labor through her children whose lives are now  answers to her intercessory prayers.  After I got the ball rolling, the children one by one thanked her and honored her (which Tara says was a first for all of them).  Then we blessed and prayed for each one of the moms and it ended up like prayer ministry for everyone,  including the men because they also wanted to be prayed for in this particular unique way.  So we ended up at night time already and because there was no time to make dinner, those who were hungry just made themselves at home in our kitchen, finding things to eat or munch on while the others were being prayed for.   

      What really overwhelmed me was how spontaneous everything became after that one gesture of honor.  The Holy Spirit took over and Tara and I moved in the anointing automatically.  While praying for one of his sisters, Tara felt that he first needed to ask for forgiveness from her for not attending her wedding, for all the bitterness in his heart towards her in the past.  It was quite dramatic also when Tara's Mom, after being honored by her children, asked to be given an opportunity to speak.  She choked over her words of gratefulness to God for his grace in her life and for answering her prayers.  

It's been four days now since Tara's Mom has been staying with us.  Yesterday, she shyly gave me her silver ring with three stones that look like diamonds.  I was so touched.  She has been teaching me some Nepali words and I have been teaching her both English and Cebuano.  So it's been fun hosting this "week of rest" for her.  I find myself enjoying having a Nepali Mom and I find it a privilege to bless her and be blessed by her.  

I have always felt it difficult to love Nepal and the Nepalese people. I am guilty of having time and time again complained about and magnified the negative things about this nation and its people.   This   Mother's Day, while I was prayer ministering to the Nepalese family that the Lord gave me, the Lord spoke to me that something good will come out of this nation and He is giving me the privilege to witness it.  It reminded me of that instance in the Bible when Nathaniel made a seemingly cynical comment to Andrew's invitation for him to come see Jesus:  "Can anything good ever come out of Nazareth?"  That was the ultimate understatement of all time!  "Can anything good come out of Nepal?" I am guilty of asking myself this question time and time again whenever I am annoyed by the dusty streets of Kathmandu, the daily power cuts, the  inconvenience of having to walk during "bandhas" (strikes),  or ride jam-packed buses, etc.    So I take that word from the Lord as a gentle rebuke for my whining, cynicism and unbelief.  Lord, open my eyes to see the pearls tucked away in people's lives and the treasures of darkness buried away in the gloomy mines of this nation!