The Gardeners Prayer

Lord, let me be a gardener in your garden.  Lord - teach me.  Lord, help me - know you.

Lord, that I would be a wise old gardener.  At the back of the border.  Tending the soil, with watchful patience.  And gently learning a lesson.  Another well won lesson.

Lord, give me peace.  Help me to know the peace of the garden.

Lord, garden in my heart.  Lord, root out the weeds, the unlovely weeds.  Work my soil - the soil of my heart.

Help me to love - the unlovely.  The hateful, the unforgiven, the lost, the spiteful, the unlovely, the unkempt.

Lord, take the unkempt, neglected corners. The corners where nature resides. Help tidy. Find an edge and make the hedge again. 

God enlarge my heart - to the size of the garden.  Your garden.

Thank you. And Amen.

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And there in your garden - we can walk together.  And I wont need to hide and seek.  You will be there in my gardeners heart.

We can find an old, neglected, very old apple tree - blossoming in spring.  Wisdom, age, decay, life, love, laughter, joy, youth - make the tree come alive again.  Give the tree another season in your garden.  Raise another fruitful crop.  To feed the little ones with apple pie.  And scrump another apple.

I work the garden.  And the gardener - the garden works me.

Finding a forgotten garden.  That needs a gardener.  Who's owner is old, she's lost her husband, the light of her life.  A neighborhood of widows - who's gardens need discovering.  Tending and loving.

Enlarge my heart to love - the forgotten, the unkempt, brambles and weeds and overgrown borders.  The stuff of my life.

Let me be a gardener - gardening in the heart.

And while I am in the heart of the garden.  You garden in my heart.  And we can gently garden in other hearts.  Every unsuspecting, unloved and undiscovered heart.