the God of my garden.

read this without judgement, i ask. we all have planks in our eyes.

sunday morning: i woke up to find that my fingers had tiny bumps on them. i found 4 or 5 on my hands. they were sore and filled with puss. like lots of tiny tiny blisters.
i look down at my knees as i shower. one there too.
later i hit my elbow on the kitchen counter. it felt unusually painful. guess what: another tiny bump on my elbow.
as i put my shoes on for church, i see them all over my feet, even on the underside of my left foot.
are you thinking this is some gross fungus or disease i've contracted? well, read on...

a bit of background: april 2007, i started feeling a bit uneasy about certain parts of my ministry in cape town. one in particular was feeling especially cumbersome, overwhelming, empty. each time i entered that particular "work", i felt dread, depression, exhaustion, a bit of resentment. "why do i have to keep on with this thankless group, dealing with their and my own persecution? what are you doing here god?"
ever felt that way?

i tried to will myself into an old mold. i tried to make it rain in summer. i tried to push flowers up out of a dry, arid ground. i was doing something i felt i had no control over, confused and unsure as to why i continued. was this god signaling a time-out? was this my lack of faith? was it just a season of difficulty? or was i "laboring in vain" as psalm 127 says?

so, for the past....EIGHT months, i've been operating out of this emptiness. i'll be honest, i've been pushing myself at a pace i no longer have energy for. and as for fruit... there was NONE? not visible to the human eye at least. i don't underestimate god's power in the heavenly places, but to all observing my life, it seemed pretty ridiculous. not to mention the hours of crying and pain and frustration i endured on a weekly basis. not the best prescription for the start of a supposed-to-be-joyful marriage! ryan and i both suffered greatly under the heaviness of this burden i had carried for so long.

exhaustion. depression. anger. rage. fear. insecurity unlike i've ever experienced. violence within my spirit. self-hate. feelings of failure. a constant nagging voice in my head telling me I am no good. internalizing everything.

i knew i had hit a breaking point more than a year back. i knew that it was me and god in this work, and that those people i had come to admire and love dearly were no longer supportive of this thing i was doing. it was such a lonely time. very few people know the depths of depression that i had sunk to. very few cared about anything more than what "appearance" i was letting off.
was it the christian thing to do?
was i mad?
was i imbalanced in the head? rebellious? deaf?
what had become of me?

thanks be to god, a few people hung in there with me through it all. and now, those same people are the ones who will find the greatest joy in this post, and have the greatest compassion, rejoicing, and understanding in what happened next.

back to sunday morning, nov 19 2007: i've been saying for weeks that god's telling me to rest. and for the last few months i've discontinued this certain ministry i referred to the in the aforementioned paragraphs. and with that discontinuation has come a bit of peace; but, mostly uncertainity, loss of identity, and questioning of myself, God, and just why i am in cape town.

ryan and i arrived at church, late as usual! we found a seat near the right side of the stage with our dear friends, tony and sherna. carly boy was with us, and he snuggled in between us all and zoned into the service with an almost-chemically-induced dedication to the pastor!

i was discovering more and more bumps as the morning progressed. it was starting to freak me out. am i contagious? have i handled bad chicken? is it scabies again? what's going on? ryan started thinking i was having an allergic reaction to something. i've never had an allergy in all my life. strange.

side note:one of our pastors at jubilee is wayyyy into healing as a spiritual gift, which it is. i've just never been exposed to this charismatic, spirit-led type of stuff. i didn't grow up with much awareness of the holy spirit in a church sense, although i felt him leading me all the time, i've come to realize. so, our filled-with-the-spirit,-let's-all-be-healing-each-other pastor, lex has really influenced my interest in this lately. each sunday he preaches i look at ryan in trepidation cause i just know he's going to say "if anyone has major stomach issues, major digestive issues or pain, god is calling you to come forward and be healed." (he says that each time he preaches. i have hectic stomach issues, and cannot even drink a glass of water without burping or feeling serious discomfort. and, i've yet to make my way to the front for "healing". to be honest, i'm a bit doubtful of all that stuff!)

well, lex wasn't preaching. it was some british dude with a power-packed-punch of a sermon. he preached on psalm 127...if god's not doing the building, the watching, etc, then we are building and watching in vain.
"in vain". THAT'S IT, i thought to myself! my life feels like it's "in vain" these days.
my hands continue to grow little bubbly bumps. it's disgusting me. i point a new one to ryan. he scoots away from me.

"are any of you filled with anxiety? striving in vain? do any of you feel you've poured yourself out on something that has born no fruit, that is almost as dead and dry as the day you encountered it? are you toiling in vain? do you feel that you've taken over god's work and are doing it in your own energy?"
i look around the room. i cannot deny this man is reading my heart. i know ryan's looking at me.

i go to the front. i know i'm meant to do it. i know god is saying "FINALLY" to all the angels around him watching this moment of truth.

i stand before this red-faced brit with passion in his voice. he knows what i'm feeling. i think he's got an x-ray machine on my soul. i'm getting a bit weak in the knees.

he begins praying. i look around and see 50, 80, 100 others around me, all feeling this anxiety, this toiling in vain. thank GOD i'm not the only one up here. thank god i'm not the only one making a mess of things.

suddenly i look over at a girl i know through a friend here, and i have this sudden awareness that she's about to come up to me. and just as i think this to myself, she exits her aisle and zig-zags her way through the crowd of pray-ers and surrounds me with her loving arms, embracing me in a hug. and she begins to talk.

"i've just had a vision, ashley. i believe god wants me to share this with you. i got a vision of a dry piece of land, a desert. and god has said to you, "this is your desert land. make the land fertile. grow flowers here, water it, make a garden out of this arid land."
and you threw yourself into working the land. you poured out energy, time, love. day after day after day. you worked so hard that you forgot you were in the desert at all. you forgot the sun beating down on you. you didn't even notice the dirt on your knees, the sweat pouring from your head, the burns and bruises and blisters all over your hands and feet. you have just been working the ground as the Lord told you to do.
but you've been working so hard that you've stopped being aware of anything else around you. how dry it is. how little flowers are blooming.
you built a windmill and a turbine to make more energy for the land. but there is no wind blowing. there is no rain, no river flowing by. the conditions are useless for this project you are doing. and still, you work on.

and you begin to notice how tired you are. how hungry you are. you dirty and sweaty you are. you start seeing how frail you've become. you start wondering if you have what it takes to make flowers grow, to make rain fall, to make arid ground fertile. you start doubting your work.

and you sit and you mourn your fraility. but as you mourn, god starts to blow his breath upon your garden. your windmill starts turning as god blows his breath into it. and it starts turning and it begins to rain. and you see, before you even notice when or how or why it's happening, you start to see flowers all over your garden. and it's a beautiful garden."

"but it only became beautiful when you stopped toiling, ash. god is crying out for you to rest. you are tired, and you are worn down. he wants you to delight in him. he loves you more than the garden. he values you and delights in you a million times more than he does in your labor. you've been faithful to that which he gave you, but he's taken it away now. and you must now rest. you must return to your intimacy with jesus. he's longing for you to return to that."

i'm BAWLING at this point. there are lines and lines of sweat pouring down my legs under my dress. my entire back is SOAKED in my own sweat. my face is red, almost as if i've just run in the middle of the day. i am drenched in the exhaustion of my labor.

i'm forced to acknowledge the real effects of my hard labor: pouring in sweat, covered in blisters. filled with exhaustion and loss of the plot, if you will :)

i cry out in thankfulness to the God who loves me, who delights in me. the God who has been calling me to the front of the room for weeks now. the God of patience. the God who loves me more than anything i do or don't do. the God who never gave up on me, never lost the plot. the God of my garden.


monday afternoon:i go to a local pharmacy because the bumps on my hands are getting worse. he asks me,
"have you been in the sun more than usual in the last couple of days?" i have barely left indoors in two days.
"have you done anything abnormal in the last few days?" no.
" are you allergic to anything?" not that i know of.
"are you sure you were not in the sun too much this past weekend?" i assure him i barely even saw the light of day!

he stares and he thinks and he consults another doctor. they inform me i am suffering from...a heat rash. i've had an allergic reaction to the sun.

well, ok god. i get the point.

so, today, tuesday:i spent the day at home re-evaluating things. came to some god-led conclusions.
as for the tiny bumps...they are nothing more than little red dots, a mere trace of the swollen, painful blisters they were before.