Come to the Garden Read online

  “Then, as a young woman, your dreams change. They take on meaning. They come true. They cause you angst. You know there is a purpose, but you don’t know what it is. You are curious and are now pressing your hands against the door. Suddenly you hear the sound of huge tumblers falling into place as a great lock becomes unlatched. The hinges creak mightily, and the door cracks open barely an inch with a tremendous shudder. You peek inside, trying to get a glimpse of what is beyond. There is a light approaching . . . you press harder . . .

  “Now, Jennifer!” Margaret commanded, flinging her arms wide. “Throw open this door and feel the light of God’s truth as it comes flooding out upon you. What do you think God was telling you by sending you these dreams?”

  Rooted to my chair, I thought for a minute. Then an inspiration swept through me as if a mighty wind had just blown through that door. Breathless with wonder, I gave her my answer: “God was unlocking the door to his Kingdom so he could reach me in a way I could not ignore. He had something important to say, and he was going to use my dreams to speak to me. I think that God was trying to tell me these initial dreams were meant to make me sit up and pay attention because more was coming my way.”

  “Yes,” Margaret confirmed. “For reasons known only to him, our Holy Father chose this kind of dreaming to communicate with you. Dreaming is and always has been an important form of communication between God and his children. The Bible is full of people he spoke to in their dreams: Jacob, Joseph, Daniel, Ezekiel, Job, Joseph—father of Jesus—and John, just to name a few. When you are at rest, your mind is free of the clutter of your daily life. The Holy Spirit is able to reach through to your very soul to whisper God’s Word to you, and if you are patient, he will reveal its meaning. And as God unlocked the door to his Kingdom, he had an important message for you:

  “Pay attention, my beloved, and listen to me. I have much to teach you.”

  “So, my girl, your dreams now move between the earthly and spiritual realms. God has given you the gift of ‘eyes that see,’ and he is revealing important truths. Soon, we will delve into your sacred dreams. But first, there is something else you need to share. God has graced you with another gift of the Spirit, has he not?”

  “Oh,” I whispered. “His voice. That still, small voice.”

  “Ah, yes, child, the most powerful voice in the universe.” Margaret nodded meaningfully. “God has also given you ‘ears that hear.’ ”

  Eye of the Storm

  And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

  1 KINGS 19:11–13

  A strong wind began to blow through the yard and tugged at the large umbrella over our table. Margaret turned and looked toward the northwest, and I heard her say softly, “Here it comes.” My eyes followed the direction of her gaze and I saw a sky filled with angry black clouds. A summer cloudburst was fast approaching. A loud rumble of thunder filled the air; and with that Cody, Hannah, and Isabel raced in from the back of the yard at something approaching warp speed.

  Laughing, Margaret shouted above the wind and thunder, “We had better take cover on the porch, Jenn! You get the dogs and I’ll put down the umbrella!”

  I corralled the dogs, and we hurried to the porch, meeting up with Margaret just before the deluge let loose. The covered porch was deep and wide, providing ample shelter from the rain and wind, so we sat down in a couple of rocking chairs to watch and wait it out. Cody frantically pawed his way into our angel friend’s lap, and the two smaller dogs jumped up into mine and snuggled in close. Neither of us had any lap left over.

  Margaret smiled. “Well, isn’t this cozy.”

  For nearly half an hour, we sat rocking quietly while the storm blew, boomed, and poured out its fury. Finally spent, the clouds broke apart and the warm sun reemerged, creating a landscape glistening with raindrops.

  “Storms have always intrigued me,” Margaret said with a sigh. “They can be so powerful, and yet they always pass. Many storms leave destruction in their wake, but that mercifully passes, too, and is replaced by healing, strength, and beauty nurtured by the storm’s elements. It’s like the storms we experience in life. Don’t you agree, Jenn?”

  “I suppose,” I answered hesitantly, unsure of where my friend was going with this point. I began to have an inkling . . .

  Margaret turned in her chair to face me directly, her blue eyes looking into mine. “There is a part of your story we have not yet discussed, Jenn, and it’s time. I want you to tell me about the period of your life shortly after you dreamed of the child with the heart condition. You were in your late twenties.”

  My stomach dropped, and I instinctively clutched the two little dogs in my lap and held them closer to me. “Yes, ma’am, I know what you’re referring to.” I sighed sadly. “I was hoping to skip over this part.”

  “This is one of the reasons I was sent to guide you on this journey, my sweet girl,” said Margaret gently. “This difficult period of your life is an important part of who you are, and it was a time when your Heavenly Father was speaking more powerfully to you than ever before.”

  It was clear Margaret was not going to let me off the hook, so I took a deep breath and exhaled. “Okay. Here goes. It was during the late 1980s, and during this period of spiritual awakening, another part of my life was being devastatingly slammed shut. My one and only plan for my life was to be a wife and mother. Period. I wanted to be just like my own mother, who is wonderful, caring, and nurturing. For years my husband and I tried to have children with no results and the doctors could never say why. I saw infertility specialists, tried various procedures, and despised every second of it. Something that should have been so natural and loving had become clinical and stressful, physically as well as financially. We did not have the money to try the horrendously expensive in vitro fertilization procedure. My friends were all having children and were busy raising their families. I felt so incredibly sad and left out. I stopped seeing many of my friends with children and could not bring myself to attend any of the baby showers I was invited to. In my attempt to mitigate my pain, separating myself from my friends only served to bring on a whole new wave of anguish.

  “While all this was going on, I was completely unaware that I was suffering from a thyroid imbalance caused by another benign tumor, which was later successfully removed. These factors combined to play havoc with my emotions, my health, and my marriage. There were no support groups for this kind of thing back then—no one wanted to talk about infertility. My life spun out of control, and I made hurtful choices. My marriage ended—thankfully not bitterly—and both of us moved on with our lives. I was so ashamed and devastated. I was not at all prepared to have my dreams so thoroughly swept away from me, and guess what? I became very angry with God. No God could love me and let this happen to me. I prayed and prayed and prayed for God to fix things so I could have children, but my prayers were met with absolute silence. So I quit talking to him.”

  Margaret reached over and placed her hand on my arm. Her eyes expressed a deep empathy, and I knew she had been a witness to all that had happened.

  “You went through a terrible storm, Jennifer. I watched what it was like for you, and I grieved along with you. You were lost in the thunder and the wind and the rain, and you could not find God.”

  “That is a really good description, Margaret. I can give you a little mental picture of what it felt like to be me. When I sat in the bathtub as a little girl, I used to love pulling the drain plug and watching a mini cyclone form as the water was sucked down the drain. Well, I felt like I had been sucked up by that cycl
one and thoroughly ripped and torn from all that I knew. I watched as my dreams swirled down the drain. I felt like I couldn’t breathe for a very long time. But finally, like you said, the storm passed. I began to try to live my life again, but I still felt terribly lost and sad. And I still wasn’t talking to God.

  “And that is when the most incredible thing happened, Margaret. When I quit talking to him, he began talking to me!

  “The first time he did so was the first and only time, so far, that I have heard his voice aloud while awake. I was lying in bed, alone, devastated and trying hard to catch the sleep that had been eluding me. My thoughts spun in my head so fast I could barely keep up. What am I going to do now? Why did this happen to me? How can I go through life without children and grandchildren? Who will ever want me for a wife? And that is when I heard, out of the darkness, as if someone was standing right next to my bed, ‘Jennifer!’ The voice was loud and startled me into complete silence. All those thoughts instantly evaporated, and I was left with the feeling that God was right there in the room, and he was telling me to just stop, breathe, trust. And I did just that, because quite frankly, I didn’t know what else to do.

  “Then, something began to happen that I’ve never fully understood. Now that God had my attention again, he began to talk to me in my dreams. I dreamt about my friends, sister, cousins—women who were close to me. In these dreams, a voice would announce that the person I was dreaming about was pregnant. And they were! I was given this knowledge well before their pregnancies were made public. I had never experienced this kind of ‘announcing’ in a dream before. And I was completely astounded. I mean, here I was, miserable about being childless, and God was giving me dreams about pregnancies. It really felt like a cruel cosmic joke, and it made me sad. That is the part I don’t understand, Margaret. Why do you suppose this happened?”

  Margaret smiled. “God wasn’t trying to make you sad, Jenn. You had stopped listening to him, and these dreams got you listening again, didn’t they?”

  “Yes, they did,” I admitted.

  “Child,” Margaret said tenderly, “even in the midst of your pain, God was letting you know that he was still there and he had something to say to you. I know it didn’t seem like it at the time, but hearing his voice was an important new gift for you.”

  “Well,” I said thoughtfully, “I guess that makes sense. This voice, this announcing, was something I could not ignore. I admit I had not forgiven God yet, but I do agree with you, Margaret . . . I was listening again.”

  “Our Father is most amazing in his persistence, isn’t he, dear one?” Margaret smiled wistfully. “This was a crucially important time for you because your Heavenly Father was teaching you how to recognize his voice. You needed to know that whenever you are lost or are in the depths of despair, God’s quiet voice—the voice that spoke the entire creation into being—will guide you safely back into his loving embrace. I am so glad you began to pay attention to him again.”

  “I am very glad God was persistent with me,” I agreed. “I was so angry and disappointed with him that I am not sure how I would have come back to him on my own. I feel rather ashamed about that.”

  Margaret nodded, understanding. “That happens a lot. It is a natural tendency for people to blame God when things don’t work out the way they expect. But you know what? It is okay to be angry with God. He is God. He can take it! He would much rather you come to him in your anger and despair than to turn away from him. During this painful chapter of your life, God was always right there. And this is what his still, small voice was trying to tell you:

  “Most cherished of my heart, I am in the quiet eye of every storm you will go through. When you are caught up in one of life’s storms, run to me, dear one, not away from me.”

  A giant lump had formed in my throat, and I wasn’t able to speak. I felt completely humbled and so very much loved at that moment. As tears welled in my eyes and threatened to spill over, I simply nodded my head.

  Margaret reached over and patted my arm. “Now, Jenn, I need to leave you for a little while. I would like to meet you back here this evening after dark, for there is something special we are going to explore together.”

  With a mysterious gleam in her eyes, Margaret gently removed Cody from her lap and headed out into the glistening wet grass. As she stepped into the butterfly garden, her shimmering yellow gown melted into the yellow lantana flowers, and she disappeared.

  Savior

  In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.

  JOHN 1:1–5

  Faces of precious family and friends looked back at me through the many framed photos that decorated my office. I spent the afternoon upstairs in this tranquil space, preparing a Bible study lesson I would be leading next week. I thought about these faces, as well as the lovely women who were joining me on this year-long study journey at church, and found myself in a spontaneous moment of thankful prayer for the presence of each and every one of these people in my life. They had stretched me, encouraged me, strengthened me, and loved me. Their faithful friendship had been a true earthly representation of the grace of God. I reflected on the people in my life who had told me they didn’t want to join a church, that they could just as well find God in the woods, at the ocean, or in the mountains. I may have agreed with that idea years ago because I, too, found God in all of these places. But through the years, my experience with the unfailing love and support of my church family had shown me the priceless value of a community of faith. Remembering the morning’s conversation with my angel, I wished I had had the gift of a godly fellowship of believers those many years ago when I felt so isolated and alone.

  The shadows of the evening steadily crept though my office windows as I worked, and soon it was dark. I had lost track of the time since I did not have to stop to prepare dinner—Guy was attending a monthly dinner meeting with colleagues. I quickly realized it was time for another meeting with my angel! I hurried downstairs and stepped onto the patio, looking in the direction of the garden where I last saw Margaret. Any minute now, I thought. I wonder what Margaret has planned for tonight? She had ever so gently guided me into discovering new and precious truths in each one of our conversations. This morning’s conversation had included a topic that had always been acutely painful for me, yet at its conclusion I felt profoundly loved.

  The night was warm and peaceful. All the busy-ness and noise of the day had been put to rest. I listened to the faint rustle of the breeze and the soft music of my wind chimes. Then, next to the statue of St. Francis, a faint shimmer of light appeared. It grew steadily brighter, and I again saw the faint outline of wings—my angel was back! Margaret stepped from the garden and came to stand by my side. She smelled faintly of white roses.

  “Did you enjoy your day, Jenn?” she asked.

  “Yes, I did,” I replied. “I did a lot of reflecting on what we talked about and how God’s voice called me back to him.”

  She smiled and I noticed that mysterious gleam again. “We are going to continue our conversation, and I am so excited because tonight is all about the wonder of his love.” She motioned over to our chairs by the fire pit. “Let’s go sit.”

  We settled into our two chairs, looking out into the backyard, and sat for a few moments in silence, letting the quiet of the night seep into our hearts. The scent of gardenias was heavy in the air, and little tree frogs began to sing, creating a rhythmic chorus in the darkness.

  After a while Margaret spoke. “Look at all those stars.” She sighed, leaning her head back against the chair and lifting her face to the heavens. “So many beautiful points of light.” She turned her head and looked at me, and with a soft voice she said, “You had a personal encoun
ter with the Original Source of this light, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” I breathed, looking up at the star-filled sky. “I sure did. I met him in the darkest place I have ever been.”

  “Tell me,” Margaret prodded gently.

  My heart quickened as I began to tell Margaret the story of a night and a meeting arranged by the Almighty himself.

  “The agony of the years of my infertility and then a failed marriage took a deep toll on me. I felt so far away from God and so far away from myself. I had no idea how to get back to the happy, confident young woman I had been so long ago. I began to see a therapist, who did help me to put things in perspective a bit, but I was still so incredibly sad. Then, one night, soon after hearing God speak my name by my bedside, I went to bed and dreamed a dream that changed my life.”

  As my dream begins, I am walking in a cold, very dark desert. There are no stars, and I am afraid. I don’t know what I am afraid of, but it has something to do with being out after dark. For some reason, it is very important to be home after the sun has set, or I will be in danger. I move quickly toward my house in the desert, a clay dwelling with open-air, arched windows. It reminds me of something one might see in old Jerusalem. As I walk on the cold sand, my fear rises to an almost panicked level. I have to get to my house soon, but my house is dark, and I am also afraid of what the darkness inside the house might hold for me. As I finally approach, I am amazed to see a hand placing a candle in the window. No one is supposed to be there! I feel instant relief at that little point of light—it is the only light I can see for miles around. I enter my home. It has a dirt floor, and there is no furniture. I look across the room toward the window, and what I see astonishes me. There, standing in a shimmering gold light that encompasses his whole being, is Jesus! I fall to my knees before him in absolute wonder. His hand is still on the candleholder in the window as if he is still holding it to light my way. I cannot see the details of his face clearly because of the incredible, shimmering gold light, but I instantly know him. He smiles and his voice says to me, “I will always be here for you, Jennifer.” With that, he begins to shimmer even more and starts to fade. The gold shimmers are dispersing in an ever-widening pattern until they engulf the whole room, swirling around me. The very air I breathe is full of him, effervescent. As I breathe in, it feels as if I have been dropped into a very bubbly glass of champagne and am breathing in the liquid bubbles. Then the room becomes quiet. He is gone. But I am no longer afraid. When I awaken from my dream, I feel, for the first time in a very long time, that things are going to be okay. And even better, I also know I have just met my Savior, the Light of the World.