The light at the end of the tunnel- starts with a garden? Part Two

As I started to say in my previous post....I'm seeing light at the end of the tunnel. It has been a long hard road these last four years. I have the bittersweet memories of my time with Bill in our wild and scary garden- where we whacked out some beauty from the weeds that ultimately brought death and  it's probably time to leave the garden metaphor.

Well, maybe not.  I was left with one specimen, Paul. And for four years I have examined him and watched him and tried to nurture him but the more attention I gave him, the more he withdrew.  Every time he grew a little on his grief journey, I pulled him up and examined his tender roots.I vacillated between understanding and complete frustration. I said yes to activities and then regretted my decisions.  I  was the object of  his anger- expressed and repressed. I took him to counselors and specialists. I cried my eyes out in fear and anguish. I knew my other kids were hurting but somehow they seemed to have faithful friends and better coping mechanisms so most of my attention was centered on Paul. He was the tender, broken piece in my garden and I didn't know what else to do for him.

But when all is said and done, a gardener is only the tender of the plants, not the source of their growth.  And slowly, I made fewer  mistakes and said fewer words.  Prayed more and worried less. Trusted God more and ignored the specialists. And someday, I'll be able to share the details.  For now, it's enough to savor the amazing sweetness of a son who is talking to me, making plans to move on and seeing light at the end of his tunnel.

This was a summer of mission trips for both of us. I've been on the mission board for years now and this was my first real mission trip. I ended up teaching art therapy at a children's home. And I know nothing about art therapy. Isn't it just like God to show up when we don't know what we're doing? 

Paul went to Ireland and God showed up there also. In the months leading up to the trip, Paul had become softer and more open. We had more conversations and less silences. He had deep spiritual insight in our home group discussions. God had been working all this time and Ireland was the fruit of the years of prayer and trusting and waiting. Paul, the "most private patient I've ever had", stepped out in obedience and shared his testimony. In public. More than once. With power and growing confidence in what God had done and was doing in his life And as he shared with me how that felt, the joy that flooded him when he was able to be open and honest and vulnerable- I knew we were coming out of the long, dark timel.  The Light had always been there drawing us forward to healing. And, yes, it all started in a Garden.

We were created for relationship in that garden. For relationship with our Creator and for relationship with each other. Sin in that same garden lead to alienation, sickness and destruction, cancer and death. But God is all about redeeming His creation and His people and recreating relationship. So as Paul prepares to move to the West Coast and I begin to mourn my empty nest, I chose to rejoice in this place on my journey, on our journey. Redeemed relationship with promise of future.More opportunities to trust and release. Life in the garden.   

The light at the end of the tunnel- starts with a garden?

It will be four years in September. Bill died or came to life....on September 20, 2006. Some days it feels like yesterday and I need to ask him something. Other days, sad days- I have to look at a picture to remember his face. It feels like another life ago. And it was.
It was a good life, a great one on occasion. I was busy with homeschooling, gardening, keeping up with my life and the people who filled it. Trying hard at motherhood. Trying harder at marriage. It was all about my roles in relationship to the people who needed me. When I had a moment to think what I wanted from life, it felt self centered and somehow disloyal to my family. And I am grateful for the amazing fruit of those years of pouring into my family.

  I am especially grateful for the fifteen months Bill and I had in the garden of cancer. Yes, a garden. A place of fruitfulness after a season of work.  This particular garden where weeds of fatigue and fear threaten threaten to choke out any small, hopeful bloom. Where there was no reason to expect fruit.  But every garden has its season and our time had great moments of peace, grace, unleashed love, happiness and joy. These were the rare and precious produce of that garden.

I love that old, rather sappy hymn "I Come to the Garden Alone".  Childhood memories of a church with soft light on golden, peeled logs and sturdy, old hymns wind around my mind and are overlapped with memories of gardens I have wandered through.  And He truly did "walk with me and He talked with me. And He told me I was His own.... and the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has every known."

Well, there goes the writing time. Off to work.. Part Two-the light at the end of the tunnel.
domani, doppa domani. 

I Come To The Garden Alone

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.

Refrain

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.

World Cup and Puppy dogs

This is so fascinating. I don't watch television, I'm not particularly fond of dogs,  I don't even care for soccer.  So why am I sitting in front of the television with a really cute little puppy watching the world cup?  Mother love wins out over taking a nap or shopping or anything else I can imagine.   I'd probably watch professional wrestling  if that's how we could spend time together.  Well, maybe not. Fortunately, that's not their taste either. Well raised young couple.

Either way it's lovely to be here in Norfolk on a quiet Sunday afternoon. We join the world watching NO one score in the biggest soccer game of the year and I join Steve and Abby in being entertained by their adorable little shiba inu puppy.  We'll go out to a big band concert on the beach tonight and tomorrow I'll head back north to home.

I caught up on a few fun blogs and it made me realize how lovely it is to be 50 (ok 50+) and not be driven to be productive and get something done at all costs.  I'm not good at relaxing and it as taken me most of my life to figure that out and how to really let myself rest.  Mostly it involves leaving my house! So when I have the time, and God provides a place to escape to, I need to just go and really rest on a Sabbath.  Even if it means watching the World Cup.