I love gardening, …….. yes, I have said it before and there is a sure fire guarantee that I am going to say it again. My ultimate favourite love in my garden is roses. Any color, any size, fragrant or not, they are all wonderful!!! I have quite a few rose bushes in my back yard in a garden Darwin (with the help of my son and son in law) built for me. It is my place of peace. Even despite my unusual gardening efforts and failings, they produce for me the most amazingly gorgeous flowers with each one bringing such great joy!
If I had lots of money and lots of time to tend a hedge, it would be made of roses. Thick beautiful foliage and a spray of flowers that would not only satisfy the sense of sight, but would fill the air with the gift of fragrance. Can you imagine how beautiful that would be!!!
Hedges are grown either to keep something in, or something out. To create a boundary where there is a measure of protection. So in my way of thinking, a rose hedge would be perfect.
“Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.” Job 1:9,10
God didn’t create this world to cause the horror, sadness and pain that it is filled with. As we continue day to day life we are faced with the constant tug on our hearts for Ashley’s health, for healing for things from the accident. The journey we are on at times feels like constant reminders of the timeline that God moved the “hedge” from around us. Is that what happened? Did God and satan volley for the attention of our family? No!
I recently wrote our Pastor, Matt Shantz. I kinda poured out in an email a question I was working through. As is always the case, he has a gift that God has given him in being authentic in his faith in Jesus and his love of service in helping the people of the church. This is a quote from his reply that struck me deeply and I want to share it with you.
“Let me share a quote from a commentary on Job that I have that will hopefully be of encouragement to you (“Crying out for Vindication”: The Gospel According to Job, David R. Jackson):We live at a time when more Christians are being persecuted and killed for the sake of the gospel than at any other time in history. There are so many Jobs on ash heaps in more countries than ever before. And in various ways, all who put their faith in Christ will have to deal with the same issues and challenges.Here we discover, with Job, more of the depth of God’s grace to us in Christ—who, by his own choice, suffered more than Job to save us from the cruelty and domination of sin. At the worst of times, when we are ambushed and wounded, we need to know, to believe, and to cling to these things. And so we join the audience and come to learn the wisdom of the gospel according to Job.”
