Encouragement

---

Gethsemane's Soil


I am here. Hesitantly. But I chose to come, again.

My toe has touched your soil before, when life’s momentous things called me to this place. And though I found, within your embrace, comfort for the season, I did not choose to linger long. But quickly fled, to my own way.

My longing is for Eden. For another time. Another place. When paradise dwelt upon this earthen orb. When in the cool of eventide clay vessels walked with God. Walked unhindered, untouched by other seed. When the only harvest known in fashioned clay burgeoned with God’s own image, undiluted, pure and fair.

But Eden’s longing, though woven through my being, cannot be home. Not now. Not in this place. Or time. Not until all things new replace, forever, the soil which, welcoming other seed, closed Edenic doors within this Potter’s clay.

Yet, the longing for a garden remains, pure and true. A garden, for which I was born. So, I am here. Once more. Standing tentatively upon your garden’s edge.
And though paradise’s longing fills my soul with hunger’s ache, a cup I see. A cup held out to me. And, I know. Oh, how I know.

But can I bend my knee? Can I press my face into your sod and claim you for my own? Can I choose to set aside the world’s I’ve claimed mine? The worlds of loneliness? Or sorrow? Of self, woo-filled as it may be? Can I set aside the pride that births abundant seedlings, seedlings familiar to my heart, seedlings that will never grow within your soil? Seedlings that disguise the face of God?

I hear the voice. See the cup, outstretched, to me. But can I take it, knowing it my own? Or will I flee? Flee to safer soil, that isn’t safe at all. That leads only to desert fare. And, though I may nibble on the manna, there, and sip sweetest waters from the stricken Rock, it cannot be my home.

For a garden I was born. Your clay lay within the Potter’s hand. My heart He fashioned from your own.

And, though I’ve run, searching for gardens more fair, gardens of my own, visiting here only from time to time, you call me now. Call me to come home, at last. Home, where awaits a cup. A cup, held out to me. Held out by the Potter’s own pierced hand, to be drunk of, deeply, day-by-day.

So, I am here. With willing, though quaking heart, I chose to come. Choosing, by grace, to make you home. To take your cup, with outstretched hand now mine, and on bended knee, look upon the face of God. Then, in surrender sweet, deeply drink Thy will and not my own.

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE