Jesus’ garden

The workshop that creaks!

I love the creaking noises that the floor of my rustic workshop makes as you enter it; it’s just its way of welcoming us, of reminding us that we are alive. It is old and tired and that is what gives it all its charm. But, in places, its beams are bending under the weight of the pallets of comic books.

The foundations of my house need to be strengthened! And the same is true for my work in general…

(in corporal, too).

This evening a whole group of young people come to lend me a hand in my cellar just below. After digging out some earth, we continue quite naturally to do the same in our hearts through a time of sharing and prayer…

The bouncer on the door

Abnormal? Many people come to visit me at the workshop; to such an extent that it becomes difficult to work there. So I have asked the Lord to post an invisible watchman at the door so that only those come whom He has really planned to send… Since then, each visitor intrigues me…

I am in the company of a young Christian, who is watching me draw, when a disabled person, who often visits me, comes through the door. As soon as the floor creaks a welcome to her, she begins to cry and, between two snivels, says to us:

‘I’ve had enough of not being like everyone else…’

We pray for her and rummage through the pockets of our hearts to give her the human kindness that we have left in there.

Sown?

Coming back from the forest, I pick up, with the promise of a cup of coffee, an old friend on the side of the path. It’s ten years since I last saw him. He used to pass by to see me sometimes in my previous workshop when, late in the evening, from the street, he would see the light on in there. Whenever I had the opportunity to speak to him about God, he did not feel that it concerned him.

But today, after quickly skipping the customary superficial chat, he leads me straight into the cellar of his heart, summing up the highlights of these ten years, his wife’s unfaithfulness, his take-over of his father’s business following his death… And, in the midst of his suffering, the memory of our discussions which led him to read the Bible and to draw from it the reassurance to keep on going. (crazy – so something did germinate !!?)

Jesus’s garden

The workshop is full of plants! I have tomatoes, pumpkins, palm trees, orange trees, green plants, my wife, banana trees, vines, fig trees… I love this, because, between two drawing boards, I take care of them and this helps me to find equilibrium amidst the extreme pressures with which I can be confronted.

The Creator explains to me loads of things full of wisdom through all this life growing around me.

For example, all those people we come across in our lives, they are Jesus’s garden.

We are the assistant gardeners:

One sows…

Whether it be a saying of Jesus, the gift of a comic book, a gospel, an encouragement, a friendly tap on the shoulder, everything that is sown produces something;

and even if it takes time to see the result, there is always something that happens (action/reaction).

…another waters.

Faithfulness in encouraging someone with a phone call, a prayer, a visit, a kind look, is the equivalent of watering in the case of plants (that also takes time but it’s even prettier). You might well say that all living beings have need of some follow-up care, without which friendship, love, dreams and plans wither!

But there is no point in pulling the leaves!!!

It isn’t advice of the ‘you just have to…’ and ‘you should…’ sort that makes people grow, as it is God who brings about growth!

(1 Corinthians 3:6)

Our job: to love and serve, that’s all.

Thanks for your prayers!

That makes us grow!