Chapter Twelve —

Come to the Garden Alone

Spring! Finally! What a welcomed relief! I wished I could have put my arms around it and never have to think beyond warm weather, budding forsythia and lingering crocuses. I kept in touch with my attorney through the proceedings after my husband filed for a divorce. I also kept in close touch with my heavenly Father. As we walked hand in hand, there were many times I looked to Him in disbelief at what was going on. No matter how eloquently the opposing attorney argued or how precise the legal jargon, nothing filed or certified could make this right.

With the paperwork nearly completed, one last nail—a Final Decree of Divorce—remained to be hammered into the casket of my marriage. By law, its death was imminent.

So today I needed fresh air. I decided to eat my lunch in the car while driving around town with my windows down. I turned on a local Christian station thinking I would catch the news and listen to music. Instead, a Chinese pastor was introduced. He was going to give his testimony about God’s sustaining power during an eighteen-year imprisonment. His penalty was purposely severe, the announcer informed, to make him an example for others in his country who might follow his Christian teaching.

“The communist forces will go to any means to stop the spread of Christianity.” Surprised by his opening remarks, I turned up the radio to hear more. “Those in positions of power do not want to hear that eternal life with God is only possible through Christ alone. Punishing pastors was one way they tried, but we know that the gospel of Jesus Christ can never be stopped.”

He continued by sharing how he had been assigned to work in a cesspool of human waste —the most humiliating and degrading job within those prison walls. The unbearable stench permeated his skin. During those eighteen years he worked alone, ate alone, and slept alone.

“But each morning, in preparation for the day’s work,” he told his audience, “I chose to look at those fields as my garden. I sang as loudly as I wanted because no one could stand to be near me, not even the guards!”

He quoted the first stanza from one of his favorite hymns, “I Come to the Garden Alone.” Having sung it as a child, I whispered along with him.

“After I was released,” he said in closing, “Many young pastors sought me out to ask, ‘How did God sustain you?’ Then they added, ‘Because when this happens to me, I want to stand just like you!’”

With tears brimming, I couldn’t shake the intensity of his message. There was no way he could have withstood this treatment alone. In times of deep despair, perhaps God ministered to him through Scripture he’d probably memorized. His strength to face another day had to have been God’s strength! God must have supernaturally kept his hope alive. How else could he have sung? How could he have even thought about gardens, flowers, even the scent of a rose? How could he have endured the loneliness and faced such humiliation had it not been for God?

“Power!” I exclaimed aloud in the car. “It has to be Your power, God!”

I compared my circumstances with his. “Lord, I have Your Word so that I can read, study, and learn; he had what he’d memorized. I listen to music played by orchestras or sung by professionals; he heard the cries of inmates. I have friends who check on me, send notes of encouragement, and invite me to dinner. Lord, could he have visitors? It seems that even though he had nothing, yet he had everything!”

I grasped to understand the miracle that God had performed in this man’s heart. In his surrounding stench of evil, God cultivated something much more fragrant and far more spectacular than the most beautiful gardens in the world: bouquets of unbelievable joy and overwhelming praise flourished from the fertile soil of his heart.

I felt exposed, sickly, and deficient, wanting to hide the condition of my heart. My husband’s broken promise reeked with the stench of evil, but after hearing this man I was without excuse to believe that I could never rejoice again.

“Lord,” I prayed in the parking lot before going back into the office, “Whatever it takes, that’s what I want. I know my heart needs a lot of work, so I’m asking You to pull up the weeds that choke out Your promises. Cultivate the places where my roots are shallow, and pour Your living water to soften the places that have grown hard. In spite of my circumstances, Lord, I want to become a delightful fragrance too!⁴² One day, I want others to say of me, ‘I want to stand just like you!’”

“I pray that the eyes of [my] heart be enlightened so that [I] may know what is the hope of [Yourl calling, what are the riches of the glory of [Your] inheritance in [me], and what is the surpassing greatness of [Your] power towards [me] who believe[s]” (Ephesians 1:18, 19 NASB, emphasis added).

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