COME TALK WITH ME
Recently I was talking to a friend about what her most favorite things are and I began to think about mine. I have always had a love affair with flower gardens and butterflies! When my husband and I were dating, we would take long walks in Botanical Gardens and local parks. To this day we still love to take a stroll, holding hands, relating how our day has gone or what’s on our hearts.
When the Thomas Kinkade pictures became famous, I was fascinated with his renditions of gloriously beautiful garden landscapes. When I was a young girl, one of my favorite books was called “The Secret Garden” and one of my favorite hymns is (I know this dates me) “In the Garden”. I think you are getting the picture! I love flower gardens! They are a place where I can leave the worries and cares of life behind and spend quiet time with the Lord.
In this busy hectic life, it isn’t always easy to “take time and smell the roses.” But oh how important it is! Psalm 27:7-8 touched my heart during a particularly busy week.
“My heart has heard you say “come and talk with me” and my heart responds, “Lord I am coming.” (NLT)
What an invitation and yet how many times have we heard that still small voice calling out to us, whispering words of hope and comfort, and we have pushed it aside thinking “I’m just too busy” or “I can do this on my own”. My heart breaks to think of how the Lord must see us, running in circles helplessly, while He has the very peace and joy that we need if we would only call out to Him. My prayer is that I will listen to that small still voice, that I will enter into that secret place where only God and I exist, a place where I can leave refreshed and strengthened.
Take time to find that special place, wherever that is for you, and call out to God
“Lord I am coming!”
“The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be a well watered garden, like an ever flowing spring.” Isaiah 58:11 (NLT)
Poem
My Secret Garden
By Ellen HGH DiTrolio
I go to my secret garden and meet
with my Savior there.
It’s a safe place and a haven,
a place where my heart knows no despair.
It is there in our secret garden,
He whispers His love to me.
Like a soft and refreshing fragrance
His love washes over me.
It is there that I am reminded
of who He is and what He has done for me.
A place of hope and renewal,
I rest in the shade of the trees.
For it is there He surrounds me with His presence.
What peace, o glorious mystery!
That when He sees me, He sees not my failures,
But only the Me that I can be.
I am like the bud of a flower in our garden.
Its beauty yet unseen,
Yet with promise of new life and glory
I feel His power flowing throughout me.
You water me with your presence
like the fresh dew from day to day.
You feed me and guard me from danger,
so that my roots are strong and do not sway.
And one day when I least expect it,
You whisper words of love to me.
“Now is your moment to flourish,
to open wide your delicate heart.
To look up towards me your creator
and to behold your purpose and its part.
For now is the time I have chosen
to reveal myself to thee,
as your King, your beloved and your savior,
I am He who has set you free!
Free to be who I made you,
regardless of what people may perceive.
It is you who will carry my fragrance,
the very essence of me!
Let me use your unusual beauty,
the beauty man can not see.
To draw them closer to me,
to reflect my glory in thee!
Have no fear my little flower
of what you are to be.
I your Father and Creator
walk beside you in victory!
Open your heart like the flowering petals,
for the time of your blooming has come.
The time to leave the shelter of my garden
and to make my fragrance known.
Don’t be afraid I will always walk with you.
Dare to embrace my purpose for you.
I will bless you, use you and flow through you.
For the day to bloom has come!”