In My Garden another version

Fear of being left behind
Fear of dying
Fear of thinking you are and finding you are not
Fear of rejection

This is life after confession, before Life in the Spirit.

She:
I must override my fear with faith, hope, and love.  There is nothing else, until You rescue me.

It doesn’t seem fair, to have to live in mystery; to know the promise, to hope in it, and even experience it at some level, and yet be exposed to such attrition!  I can only surrender.  There is nothing else worth dying for but You whether You save me or not.  After confession, and before the unction, is as close to purgatory as I ever hope to be.

So, am I quickened or not?  Indwelt, or not? Awake, or asleep?  Saved?  Lost?
You know, it doesn’t matter anymore.  I know that there is nothing else in this creation but You, and there is nothing worth living for but You, and there is nothing I can give You beyond what I have already given, which is my life. I am Your prisoner.  Sometimes I feel as though I endure the lowest chambers, dark, and far away, and all my pleading will not reach You.  Pleading does give in to endurance, though.   All right.  I wait.

I long to love and be loved.  To know and be known.  I long to be drunk in and savored, and to drink in and savor.  It is at the heart of my worship, and although it will give in to endurance, it also cries out when it cannot endure any longer.  What am I supposed to do?  I cry out for You.

Everybody talks about our times.  Times are worse, they say.  Armageddon is upon us.  Do you know what?  I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.  I can’t register against what went before.  I wasn’t there.  I can’t register against what ever will come.  I must endure this time, whatever it is.  What I shall cling to, I do not know.

How far will You reach for me, and how will I know You?  Because of the longing You placed in me to love and be loved; to know and be known; will my loving and knowing ever be enough to get me to the finish?  What if I go crazy?  Will it be enough to save me?  Or keep me awake?  It’s all I have to give.  It isn’t enough, and I know that.  Only Your mercy will save any of us.  I have lived on this faith a long time.  It is my mainstay.

Hope--You see how hurt I am.  Hope is for children, and I have had a hard time keeping alive the child within me.  She exists, but she is very fragile.  She wants so much to hope, but she is very fragile, and I cannot always hide the horror and scars from her eyes.  She sees me growing old and tired, and the hope that she cherishes for me, I cannot hope to fulfill.

Love is something for I know not what.  Love is not of this world.  Sometimes, love escapes out of me, and it hurts.  I haven’t untangled love yet from desire and symbols and the things love had to escape into when I was a child of wounded parents.  I learned the language of my culture.  Love is a wound.

Love is a wound.  (The French,  is “bless” --I am blessed.)
Hope is for a girded heart.
Faith is a mainstay.

This was once a beautiful Garden.  Now I mourn it.
Every day I wait for You,
Whispering the promise of Your return
My great hope brooding over their sandy bones.

The Scout:
Gentle One, don’t surrender to bitterness.  Timid One, let your faith define you, not your failure.

This world is darkening, and Satan and all his kingdom are coming to nothing.
This world darkened when My flesh was quenched because I am the Light
Now it darkens because it is dying itself
But I am alive forevermore, and I am the Life, so cling to me
In spite of what you see.

She:
That Thee and I could be One
It must be what Eden was
Are we going to get home?

The Scout:
Beware of the double-edged sword--there is a sword that guards the way
Trust in Me to show you the way
Only I can show you safely past the sword.

Long for what I placed in you--it is your compass, pointing the way home.
The gifts I have given remain with thee
It is up to you then, rich or poor, civil or savage, to use them.

Babylon will try to confuse you with her talk and her logic
And her insatiability.
She will try to bastardize your heart; to sell your heart of hearts
Don’t you understand?  Follow me.
Don’t keep looking at Babylon!   She is ugly to Me.
Just a little while, and all this shall come to pass
Just as I have told you.  Don’t fret.  Be kind.  Be true.  Be faithful
Wait for me.

Babylon’s day is drawing to a close
And your beloved creatures and kindred will be free once again, and forever.

Do you understand how I want you to be?
Witness to Me
My garden is yours, Beloved, it is already yours.
The sword will destroy Babylon’s snare
Babylon herself will not escape it
But I will show you safely past it
And set you free in the Garden,
My Love.