We all began in a garden Posted On: Saturday, Sep. 26 2009 05:45 AM By Darla Horner Menking
Outside Insights

Recently, as I sat on my back porch pondering how much I love being outside in nature, it came to mind that all of us started life in a garden. And oh, what a garden it was.

I love trying to picture what life was like in the Garden of Eden. There's not much detail written about it in Genesis, much to my disappointment, but it does leave my mind with an empty slate to draw my own conclusions about what it might have really been like. I do believe it was perfectly beautiful, perfectly organized, perfectly groomed and perfectly complete; since the Master Gardener was perfect Himself.

When I closed my eyes, I began to visualize I was in Eden. There were flowers growing around me that were incredibly vibrant and included every color of the rainbow, with the landscape plan enhancing every tree, bush and perennial there. I pictured this lush foliage in every shade of green imaginable, perfectly pruned (you know that is important to me), and no dead leaves or branches in sight.

I noticed I felt a slight breeze gently brushing my face with an ever so slight coolness, and suddenly I smelled so many wonderful scents wafting from the rose garden there. I now see, in my mind's eye, every kind of ripe, fresh fruit hanging from the branches of the grandest orchard I've ever seen.

Beyond that are endless fields of wildflowers in vivid hues I've never seen here on Earth. I turn around to the sound of soft trickling water, and behind me I find a series of waterfalls gracefully filling a pool of turquoise water. It is surrounded by feathery ferns and noble palm fronds moving ever so slightly in the breeze, whispering my name. A smooth, stony pathway beyond the palms reveals endless vines and succulents of every type and variety.

There in Eden, I sense an ever-present Spirit in the Garden, and He comforts and joins me as I meander through, what seems like hours, the endless beauty of nature's perfection. But as much as I wanted to stay there dreaming, I opened my eyes and was back on my back porch.

I love my back porch … and my plants. Though everything around me is not perfect, I still love being out there, surrounded by nature, doing my part to take care of what has been entrusted to me. And until I get to that perfect place out there waiting for me, I will be content to make my little Garden of Eden as beautiful as I possibly can.