Once Upon a Time

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the deepest yearning of our hearts

As a child I was an avid reader, especially in the summer. Every Monday during summer vacation my mother took my brother and I to Malvern Public Library where I returned the previous week’s five books, read cover to cover, and I checked out five new books. I vividly remember holding my little brother’s hand as we skipped up the sidewalk and into the library, remembering to only speak in a whisper once inside. The excitement of finding new books to read and the anticipation of what adventures those books would hold was a highlight of my youth. My mother was a subscriber to Reader’s Digest Condensed Books which arrived every quarter and which I read voraciously in addition to those library books. My hot Arkansas summers were full of chickens, cows, gardens, cats, and books. It was a good time to be a child.

my sister in front of our garden and orchard/me resting from my books/our home

Darjeeling forest 📷 KT Maxwell

Sometime during my middle school-age years I read a fantasy novel that even decades later sends a surge through my heart when I think of it. I cannot remember the name of the book or the author and because I would love to read it again I have searched the worldwide-web for it but to no avail. It was the story of a girl and boy who lived in a verdant forest. All they needed to thrive was found in the garden-like woods. The most remarkable feature that lingers in my mind is that the girl’s clothes were soft and comfortable beyond anything known because they were custom spun onto her body by a spider. I still remember deeply longing to live in such a beautiful, peaceful paradise.

For most of my childhood I had a make believe friend. My friend was an olive skinned, dark haired boy and I remember him clearly. He was always kind and gentle, he was wise, with me always, and I always felt safe with him. I never told anyone about him (you are the first) but about the time I begrudgingly decided that I was too old to climb trees I felt that I was also too old for a make believe friend. So, with some difficulty, I put him out of my mind.

In the almost spring months of 2019, a few months after my physical collapse in India, I took a retreat in a beautiful log cabin in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas.  During those two months of silence, prayer, worship, and rest I thought much about the garden of that unnamed novel and of the original garden, Eden, which was lost to us because of sin.  The song “Garden” by United Pursuit was my bedtime serenade during those months.  Even now my heart deeply longs for the garden lost and for the companionship that the man and woman shared with their Creator.

I am currently enrolled in a course of study about Christian Spiritual Formation. Nearing the halfway point of the course I have found it thought provoking and the above described ideas have been highlighted in my spirit. The first book in my curriculum was Hearing God by Dallas Willard. It was followed by readings from Frank Laubach and Brother Andrew. The theme of that first quarter was living 24/7 in the conscious awareness of the presence of God. Setting a goal of being in constant communication with God in addition to times of prayer and worship was emphasized. I long deeply to walk in this manner but I am finding it difficult to establish the kind of continual focus I desire. While pondering this one day I remembered my childhood imaginary friend and thought, “it should be like that!” And as I considered that revelation I had another thought. What if my childhood friend was not imaginary at all? What if that was actually Jesus living by my side during those years? What if I pushed him away because I thought I was too old for such things?

Through these past few years and emphasized by my current studies I have come to embrace a new way of thinking. I believe it is possible to miss something one has never seen. I believe that when God created us body, soul, and spirit that he planted deep in our hearts a longing. He has given us a longing for his presence that is closer than a brother and a longing for the home that he created for us, a longing for what was lost in that first garden. I believe that the love of fairy tales, of stories of princesses, kings and knights, castles and talking animals is an expression of that longing planted deep in our hearts. And I believe that the tendency of a child to have a make believe friend is an expression of the deep longing to live in communication with and in the continual presence of the God who created us and loved us so much that he gave himself to pay our ransom.

My heart aches for the paradise lost, and for the paradise yet-to-come, for the beauty and peace of that home Jesus is preparing just for me.  I long to live in ongoing, conscience relationship, in the friendship that was intended from the beginning, with my Creator, Savior, Comforter.  Let it be Lord.

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day…

Genesis 3:8 ESV

..there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 18:24b ESV

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him.  You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

John 14:16-17 ESV

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month.  The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.  No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.  They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.  And night will be no more.  They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

Revelation 22:1-5 ESV

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