Waiting for the Lilies

"The girl looked round her ravaged garden, seeing only the torn soil, and gaping hole where her Rose had bloomed, and feeling the fearsome smart of her gashed hands.
"I am not sorry", she said- but wept.
That night, her head throbbed with a leaden ache, and the tears came even in her sleep. She seemed to wander through a terrible maze of dreams, and always awoke grief-stricken, and with a keen sense of loss. It was as though she had held the world in her hand, and watched it trickle through her fingers and out of reach over, and over again.
And yet, the morning dawned at last, and she awoke to find a delicious perfume wafting through the garden in an almost tangible cloud. She sat up and looked round- and there, at her feet, and all throughout the garden, were springing up tall, graceful lilies of burning white, with starry glowings of gold in their slender throats, and a sweet, spicy fragrance breathing from every flower. There was an irresistible sense of GROWING in the air- she almost expected to find herself shooting upward as rapidly as the lilies. A strange, joyous melody began to play through her head (which did not ache now at all!)- and then words came, until at last, the song went like this:

'Awake, awake, O Northern wind,
And come, O Southern breeze!
Blow now upon my garden- send
To Him that holds its keys,

My garden's fragrance, spread abroad,
So that He will make haste-
My garden's gate's unbarred for Him-
Its choice fruits He must taste!'

Within an hour, the lilies had blanketed every bare space in her garden- all but the crater which had been the Rose's bed. This lay as darkly as ever amid the white sea of flowers. But she thought of the terrible scars in the Master Gardener's hands, and so, was content to have it left so, a 'wound' upon her garden- blooming there like a crushed and broken blossom from the sunless land of grief and thwarted hopes.
And so things remain.'"

I wrote these words several months ago in my entry 'The Gardener and His Servant'.
It has been a long while, and there are still days when I feel like nothing will ever grow in the 'garden' of my life again. The lilies bloom for elusive moments here and there, and are gone, leaving the torn and gaping soil desolate. It seems, some days, that I have been waiting all my life for lilies. Will the lilies ever take root and stay?

Today, Autumn rushed across the campus in a blast of cold wind. No 'season of mists and mellow fruitfulness' was this afternoon, but something wild, and sad, and fiercely elemental. I suppose it captured my imagination because, just now, I feel much more attuned to Autumn than to any other season. Not the burgeoning, tingling hope of Spring, the lazy happiness of summer, nor yet the bleak despair of winter, but wistful, vibrant, half-regretful Autumn, savoring its memories with cool-misted wonder, and packing them away for eternity between golden leaves.
I walked out to the 'Secret Garden', an old homestead near the campus. All the trees were tossing their heads in preparation for a storm. Yellow walnut leaves swirled across the gray, racing-clouded sky and over the wet fields and wet gray road like snow in a snowglobe. When I reached the homestead, I stepped through dark blue, rain-drenched cedars, across the silver-pearled grass to the gnarled pear trees.
The best pears in the world grow here- tart and electrifyingly intense, spurting juice in your mouth like nectar. And they taste so much better when you look up and see them hanging in clusters, gold and brown speckled glopes framed in shining green leaves, and reach up through the wet branches to pick them, with cold raindrops shaking down onto your face.
As I stood in the drenched grass, munching my pear, I began to turn this thought over in my mind: 'Fruit trees bear their fruit in season.' I know that's kind of a 'duh', right? But it's so true! This Spring I reveled in those same trees with their fluttering wedding-cake profusion of pink and white blossoms. That was the season for budding, for flowering and pollination. I watched them, cloaked modestly in green, looking like 'ordinary' trees during the summer, while the tiny pearlets swelled and slowly began to ripen. I have stood beside their shivering, naked silhouettes in sober desolation during the cold months. All of these phases are necessary and good to the pear tree. Why should I rebel against the 'seasons' in my life?
Maybe this is not the blossom time for me. Maybe the fragrant, lily-brimming moments seem few and far between. Every garden needs its Winters as well as Springs. Flowers are not the goal- fruit is. God promises in Galatians that 'at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.' Therefore 'let us not become weary in doing good'. Let us not break our hearts for dead roses or elusive lilies. I am not intended to spend the energies of my heart in waiting for the lilies, but rather to spend my life in eagerly expecting my Savior, loving Him with heart, soul, mind and strength! I am shaken and humbled by the power of that truth.
The God who conquered death and shattered the power of the grave- who paints breathtaking landscapes and wrenches me to tears with the beauty of His skies loved you and I even before the foundation of the world! In Him I am a new creation, a lovingly designed Eden flourishing again beneath His skilled and tender hands. I accept the plans of my wise Gardener. 'Now the Lord God had planted a garden...' (Genesis 2:8). Who am I to doubt that His garden will bring forth its fruit in the proper season?

John 15:1-4, 16
'I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you....' 'You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit- fruit that will last....'

That promise is a 'lily' that will not slip between my fingers. And when He comes, then, oh THEN what a riot of flowers there will be!