Mountain Journal — Walking Through God’s Garden
This morning, we rose with unusual purpose.
We were on our way to visit the mountain cabin of Esther and her husband on nearby Vega Mountain.
My wife had heard that the flower beds around their cabin were overflowing with forget-me-nots,
and ever since, she had been longing to bring a small cluster home to our own yard.
Come to think of it, it was already two years ago that we first dug up a few forget-me-nots from Esther’s hillside garden and replanted them in the flower beds of our condo and our eldest daughter’s home.
The forget-me-nots in our daughter’s yard bloomed again this year, just as fresh and delicate as before.
My wife is indifferent to many things, but when it comes to flowers, she becomes wonderfully greedy. She simply cannot pass by a beautiful blossom without stopping for it.
So we stopped briefly at the empty cabin and carefully brought home two small forget-me-not plants. But the human heart is rarely satisfied with just one thing. While gathering the forget-me-nots, my wife also picked a few sprigs of lily of the valley blooming abundantly around the garden and placed them gently in a cup of water.
Perhaps it was because of those tiny white flowers.
On the drive home, the car slowly filled with a fragrance so soft and clear that it felt like the lingering memory of an old perfume.
As soon as we returned home, my wife transplanted the flowers into the yard. Meanwhile, I took my camera and wandered out for a quiet walk.
Only days ago, the dandelions had claimed the fields as their own. Now nothing remained but their drifting white seeds, and in the empty spaces between them, tiny purple speedwells and yellow buttercups were quietly widening their own little kingdoms.
They were not flamboyant like the flowers sold at nurseries. Yet the sight of those humble wildflowers gathered together in their own gentle colors seemed more beautiful than any carefully tended garden.
As I stood there looking at them, a thought came softly to me.
Ah… perhaps this is what God’s garden truly looks like.
Esther’s generous heart — telling us we could come anytime and take flowers from her mountain garden — and the heart of the soil itself, quietly allowing one flower after another to bloom without jealousy or quarrel, both seemed somehow to resemble the heart of the Creator.
Look closely,
and you will see beauty.Look longer,
and you will discover love.You are like that too.
Like the poem “Wildflower” by Na Tae-joo, I found myself meeting the eyes of the wildflowers blooming everywhere along the roadside, slowing my steps more and more as I walked.
A path that would normally take only twenty minutes took me nearly an hour and a half today.
Surrounded by wildflowers blooming in abundance, and by people whose hearts overflow with kindness, I could not help but feel that perhaps I am already living in the very midst of God’s garden.
