Come to the Garden Read online

  “This was an important time of awakening in my life. I knew that with all of my flaws, God loved me and was truly there for me. I was gaining assurance that when I prayed, he was listening. I began to have confidence in my relationship with the Almighty, and my heart was filled with love for him. The passion I had longed for was finally inside of me.”

  Margaret’s eyes were filled with happy tears as I finished my story. “Yes, you did find your passion, and you could finally take the words of Deuteronomy chapter six, verse five, into your heart and live them: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.’ ”

  Then Margaret leaned in close and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper, “You were right about something special happening on that dance beam. At the request of our beloved Jesus, I was the one holding your hand.”

  I thrilled at this revelation. Both Jesus and Margaret had been there on that day long ago when a young high school girl so badly wanted the chance to fit in.

  Margaret dipped her hands in the water once more and took both of my hands in hers. “Precious child, when you knelt at that bedside and jumped head and heart first into the waters of the promise of eternal life, Jesus rejoiced. And this is what he said to you as his heart was bursting with joy:

  “I am yours forever, my beloved, for you are now baptized in me. I can’t wait to explore our future together.”

  “Now, Jennifer, we are about to go much deeper into our journey.” Margaret said, her voice taking on a more serious tone. “Your relationship with Jesus ushered you into a new future—a future where you began to encounter the things unseen.”

  Dream Girl

  I slept, but my heart was awake.

  SONG OF SOLOMON 5:2

  The next morning dawned warm and humid. With a tender kiss I handed my groggy and bewildered husband his briefcase and watched him walk out the back door. He stopped by the edge of the pool and looked over toward the chairs and table arranged by the garden. A shake of his head and a sudden, bright smile indicated his recollection of last night’s extraordinary conversation. Following an intimate candlelit birthday dinner on the porch, I told Guy the same story I had shared earlier in the day with Linney and Grace. I watched his face closely as I told him about my angelic backyard discovery. He listened quietly and intently, and then a small smile began to play at the corners of his mouth, as if a new realization was dawning as I spoke.

  “Well, what do you think?” I asked, as I finished my story. “Do you believe me?”

  Guy leaned back in his chair and looked past me into the night—the garden was quiet, asleep. Finally, he looked at me and said, “To answer you, Jenn, I want to tell you a story. Do you remember when I went deep sea fishing with a client of mine several months ago?”

  I nodded.

  “Well,” he continued, “I stood on that boat, a hundred miles out in the Gulf of Mexico, with my fishing line in the water. As the waves slowly moved across my line and splashed against the side of the boat, I watched in frustration as the men all around me were pulling in big fish, but I did not even have a bite. Finally, I reeled in my line and noticed the bait was gone. I guessed it had fallen off, so I re-baited and put my line in again. But, still no bites . . . only the wave action hitting my line and splashing the boat. I was about to give up and then I had a thought. Maybe the slight pull on the line I felt every time the wave hit it was really a fish nibbling on my bait. So the next time I felt the tug of the wave move across my line, I yanked upward and, to my surprise, I had hooked something . . . a huge red snapper. I tried the same thing again, and, bingo! Another snapper. Up until this point, I had been completely oblivious to what was really going on deep beneath the water’s surface—what I thought was wave action was really a bite. I just did not recognize it for what it really was.”

  Guy paused for a moment, just as I was beginning to wonder where in the world he was going with this story. But then he continued.

  “As I listened to you tell me about your angel, I felt several strange tugs on my heart, encouraging me to believe. I was suddenly reminded of that wave action tugging on my fishing line. I think that feeling is similar to what we experience when God is trying to make himself known to us. Beneath the surface of our daily lives, from an unseen place, he is constantly tugging at our consciousness. We just have to recognize those tugs for what they really are . . . demonstrations of his presence. And you, Jenn, seem to be able to do that. So, yes, I do believe you have had a Divine encounter. I believe God is making himself known to you through this angel named Margaret—she is teaching you to recognize his presence.”

  Wow. That was quite a conversation.

  Now, as I watched Guy stand, marveling, in the morning garden where Margaret and I met, I whispered a prayer of thanks for my insightful husband who had a heart open to possibility, and to the presence of God.

  After he pulled out of the driveway, I turned my attention to the chores at hand, picking up dog toys and washing a few dessert dishes left in the sink. Mostly, I tried to keep my eyes off the clock, for I was eagerly awaiting Margaret’s return. She had left me just after sunset the night before and had promised an early morning appearance. Suddenly, as I passed by the kitchen window with a large load of laundry in my arms, I again saw a shimmer of light in the garden. I hurried into the laundry room, threw the pile on the floor, and ran outside, holding my breath and pleading silently, Please, oh, please, let that be my Margaret!

  Sure enough, I found her standing beside the pool where we had sat last evening, a vision of loveliness. Today her sparkling gown was a pale buttercup yellow. “Good morning to you, Jennifer.” She beamed, her smile reflecting the light of heaven.

  I practically ran over to join her. I was astounded at how much I loved this angel I had just met.

  We stood together on the patio, watching God’s creatures celebrate the beginning of the new day. Birds, butterflies, and squirrels flitted and jumped and played among the trees and flower beds. Margaret spied my statue of St. Francis of Assisi in one of my garden beds. She strolled over to get a closer look, and I followed.

  “This is a nice choice for your backyard, Jennifer. Did you know that Francis called the birds and animals of the earth his brothers and sisters?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, that is one of the reasons I have always felt so close to Francis, because birds and animals are so close to my own heart. St. Francis has popped up in my life so many times in art, literature, and nature that I just had to put him in my garden.”

  Margaret continued on, walking deeper into the yard, and as she stepped from the shadows of the trees into the sunlight, the most remarkable sight met my eyes. I saw the faintest glimmer behind her shoulders. Was it . . . I did a double-take and squinted hard, trying to make out what I was seeing. Again, a glimmer, a shimmer . . . an outline of wings. Huge, head-to-toe, beautiful, transparent wings!

  “Margaret!” I exclaimed. “I didn’t know you had wings. They’re beautiful! Have you had those all along?”

  “Why, yes,” she replied. “I just chose this time to reveal them to you. And I did it to show you something. Just as you were not able to see my wings until I stepped into the light, your eyes and heart did not see God’s deeper truths until he chose a time to reveal them to you. As I move back into the shadows, you will no longer see my wings, but they are still there. God’s truth is also always there. It was there at the very beginning and will be there for eternity. To see it, all we need to do is look into the Light—the Light of the World.”

  I nodded and blinked back tears. I had nothing coherent to say at that moment.

  She smiled in understanding, and her blue eyes crinkled up at the edges.

  “We have come to the stage in your life when new and important gifts are emerging, and I would like to start with your dreams. Can you tell me, Jenn, what began to happen while you slept?”

  A small frown planted itself on my face as that familiar fear rose up inside
me. Noticing, Margaret put her arm around my shoulders and began to steer me back to our table. “Walk with me, child,” she said tenderly, “and listen to these words from Scripture, for they may encourage your heart: The second chapter of Daniel, verse twenty-eight, says, ‘There is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries . . . Your dream and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are these.’ And in Jeremiah chapter thirty-three, verse three, the Lord tells Jeremiah, ‘Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.’ ”

  As we headed back to the table together, I admit I was still preoccupied by the revelation of Margaret’s wings. But the scriptures Margaret quoted were so strikingly appropriate to my own life’s experience that, by the time we settled comfortably in our chairs, I had regained my courage. I began to answer Margaret’s question.

  “Shortly after I began my personal relationship with Christ, I began to dream. Not just any dreams, but dreams that left me with feelings of concern, amazement, and, quite honestly, a healthy dose of fear. But they all had one common denominator—I was being given information about current or future events that no one else knew. These dreams started out about things of this world and everyday life, and later moved to include deep, sacred, or spiritual, truths.”

  I hesitated. This is a subject I rarely spoke openly about.

  “Keep going, Jenn,” Margaret prompted. “Tell me about your earliest dreams.”

  “The first dream I had was about my grandmother. I dreamed she was walking out of an office building and descending a set of stairs. Halfway down the stairs, she tripped and fell, rolled down the remaining steps, and landed at the bottom, her back broken. When I awakened, I was so relieved to realize that this had only been a dream.

  “However, my relief did not last long. I cannot recall the time of year this was, but I do remember that my family was sitting down in the dining room having breakfast together later that morning, so it must have been a weekend or holiday. The telephone rang while we were eating, and my mother got up from the table to answer it. She came back a little while later with a stricken look on her face. She said, ‘Nana fell and broke her back.’ ”

  “Sitting in my seat, I felt the floor rushing up to meet me and ringing in my ears. I was so shocked I nearly fainted. I wondered if I had caused this because I’d dreamed it. As it turned out, she did not fall exactly as I saw it in my dream—she fell at home. But the fact remained—I knew it before anyone else did. I don’t believe I mentioned this to anyone because I was terrified. Thankfully, Nana recovered and my dreams returned to their normal harmless wackiness. What was very unsettling to me, though, was that my prayers to Jesus about this incident were met with silence.”

  I hesitated again, looking to Margaret for some possible insight. Instead, she reached over and gave my arm a little squeeze. “That was indeed an unsettling experience for you,” she affirmed. “You’re doing fine . . . keep going.”

  Obeying her prompt, I continued. “The summer I turned twenty, I had the opportunity to go to England and Scotland as a chaperone for a high school marching band. The school was my alma mater, and my sister marched with the band as a flag carrier. The band was making a trip from Cleveland, Ohio, to the town of Redcar, in Cleveland County, England. My father was accompanying the band as the attending physician, and my mother as another chaperone. We were all so excited as the date for our departure in June approached. As excited as I was, I was also experiencing a strange and unusual dread. I had numerous dreams of problems with the airplane on our trip. I loved to fly and had never experienced problems on a flight. I chalked it up to nerves and excitement, but as the date drew closer, my dread increased to the point I almost told my parents that I did not want to go on the trip. After telling myself a thousand times that I was just being silly, the date arrived. We went to the airport and boarded our plane from Cleveland to Boston. The flight went off without a hitch. We arrived in Boston and went to the gate to board our next plane, which would take us across the Atlantic to Glasgow, Scotland. When we got to the gate, I could hardly believe my eyes. There in the window was the giant nose of the biggest plane I had ever seen! It was a Boeing 747.

  “The plane loaded, doors closed, and we were off. There were two aisles and three sections of seats—one on each side and one in the middle. I sat in the middle section ahead of the wings next to my father. On the other side of me sat a rather obnoxious teenage boy who was a drummer with the marching band and, to my chagrin, kept playing imaginary drums on his tray table. Not fifteen minutes into the flight, there was a large bang and the plane veered on its right side, then veered on its left side, then straightened out. ‘Cool!’ exclaimed drummer boy next to me. Not cool, I thought. I had flown enough to know this was not normal. A minute later, a flight attendant approached my father and quietly requested his presence in the back of the plane. He got up and went with her. Then the pilot’s voice came over the loudspeaker: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have experienced a problem, and one of our four engines is damaged. The engine caught fire, and the fire has been extinguished. We could make it across the ocean with the remaining three engines, but for safety’s sake, we have decided to return to Boston. The problem is that we have a full fuel tank and we are too heavy to land, so we’re going to have to circle and dump fuel until we are light enough to turn around and land back in Boston.’ My father came back and told us that a woman in the back had become hysterical because she was sitting behind the wing and saw the engine catch fire. Great. My thoughts quickly returned to the feelings of dread and the dreams of problems with the airplane I had been experiencing during the prior months. What was God trying to tell me? Had he really wanted me to cancel my flight? Or, as I was beginning to suspect, was there another message hidden in all this?

  “It took about twenty minutes of circling and dumping fuel before we could attempt a landing in Boston. I felt so helpless in the air for those twenty minutes, knowing there was a serious problem with the plane, and I said a lot of prayers. As the plane neared the airport, we could see fire trucks lining both sides of the runway. Our landing was uneventful—no more fire. The airline did not have another plane available in Boston for us, so they had to have another 747 flown in from LaGuardia Airport in New York City. In the meantime, they would not let us exit the damaged plane, so they served us a meal while we waited. I remember feeling desperate to get off that plane. As soon as the new 747 arrived and we had boarded it, the dread I had been feeling for so long instantly vanished. I knew this next flight would be a breeze, and it was. An interesting sidenote to this story is that my mother had also been having the same dread and reservations about flying on this trip, and neither of us had voiced our feelings.”

  As I finished telling Margaret this story, I confided to her that this experience caused me to consider there was a lot more going on than just dreaming. At least for me.

  Margaret nodded in agreement. “You are correct, Jennifer,” she said. “God was not trying to frighten you or confuse you with these strange new experiences. Instead, he was teaching you to begin to pay attention to your dreams. And you were a good student, because that is exactly what happened.” She smiled and continued. “Now, I want you to tell me the dream you had about the baby.”

  The baby. This dream had convinced me that another realm was pushing its way into my consciousness while I slept.

  “In the mid-1980s, I was living in Cleveland, Ohio. Friends of mine, whom I had not seen in several years, were expecting their first child. During the eighth month of my friend’s pregnancy, I dreamed there was a serious problem with the baby’s heart, and that the baby might die. It was a very disturbing dream, and kind of strange because I had not been in touch with her recently. I wondered why on earth I would be dreaming about her baby. My previous experiences with dreams coming true made me think twice about this one. What was I supposed to do? Call a very pregnant friend I had not seen in a long time and tell her something was wrong with her baby? I th
ink not! Again, I let this go, telling myself that for the most part, my dreams are just dreams and do not come true.

  “The baby’s due date finally arrived, and my friends were blessed with a baby boy. But immediately, things went terribly wrong. He turned blue. He was rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit, where it was determined that he was born with a condition called transposition of the great vessels, meaning that the two major vessels of the heart were reversed. The baby would die without immediate open-heart surgery to correct the problem. He was taken to another hospital with a pediatric heart specialist and underwent an open-heart procedure. Thankfully, the procedure was a success and this dear little boy survived.”

  I paused and looked over at Margaret, who was listening intently. I sighed. “You know, Margaret, by this time, I was convinced God had some kind of purpose for showing me these things in my dreams. But for the life of me, I could not figure out what this purpose was. It both frightened and amazed me. I knew I could not have called my friend and told her what I had dreamed. It would have scared her to death, and she probably would have thought I had lost my mind. But I also was getting the clear impression that this dreaming was not to be ignored.”

  Margaret stood and moved slowly around the table to stand behind me. She placed both of her hands gently on my shoulders. In a hushed voice she said, “You were correct in your impression that you were not to ignore these special dreams.

  “I want you to do something now. Close your eyes and picture this in your mind: Dreaming is like resting up against a heavy wooden door with huge iron hinges. Feel it. The door is solid, immoveable, secure. Just like your childhood dreams, it is just there. It may lead somewhere, but you are not particularly interested in where. You are only interested in waking up after a pleasant rest.