Soul Garden

One of my favorite books as I was growing up was the Secret Garden. I don't want to summarize the story, just that there's a secret walled garden with much of the contents dead or asleep. The reason it was shut up and lost to time was because of a tragedy at the center; a tree that broke and caused an untimely death.

Our hearts are like that. Walls around it, some larger and impassable. Some crumbling. The contents dead or alive depending on how we tend to it. Sometimes our hearts are so secret we can't even find them.

Jesus isn't content to leave our hearts in disrepair or anonymity. He breaches our walls with His passion, and gently breathes life into the devastation. The results are breathtaking. What was dead or dying comes alive with ravishing splendor. Because we learn that He is safe and our entire being rests in His love, our walls become transparent and permeable and the beauty within starts to spill out, encroaching into our surroundings.

Sometimes it really really hurts. He comes in with a shovel. Or a backhoe. He uproots evil, uncovers wounds, and gathers up the death and burns it. This is unavoidable and inescapable if we want wholeness. Pain is necessary; but it's more the pain of labor than the pain of rape. There is beauty and joy on the other side.

This is better and more glorious than anything you can imagine. This is the reason we were created. The process of intimacy, of knowing Him. If this is the goal we unreservedly pursue, how would this change the face of the Bride on the earth?