YOUR GARDEN IS HIGHLY SCENTED.

The bride’s delightful garden was cultivated with the choicest plants and trees, yielding good fruit. Spikenard and saffron grew, calamus and cinnamon, frankincense, myrrh and aloes. A fountain in the midst sprang from deep, pure water, running into a stream, which flowed through the garden.

A strong, hot wind blew one morning: unpleasant, uncomfortable and untimely.  The gale gave way to a southerly wind, heralding a sharp storm, yet wafting a delightful fragrance of cinnamon, spikenard, myrrh and aloes. The air was fragrant.
Then the bride’s husband came into the garden, delighting in the sweet aroma of spices, plants and bushes.

You can read this delightful story in the Song of Solomon chapter 4:13-16 

Spikenard was a costly perfume, which Mary poured over the Lord Jesus.  The anointing oil poured on Aaron for high priestly ministry contained cinnamon.  Frankincense speaks of Christ’s perfection.  Myrrh associates with suffering and aloes with sorrow.  Pomegranates are full of red seeds, productive and fruitful, and represent resurrection life.

The bride’s garden pictures a believer as bride of Christ, the heavenly bridegroom.
How often contrary winds blow- hot north winds; stormy southerly gales.  What happens when the wind blows on your garden?  Daily events test my garden.

When leaving for a missionary prayer meeting, I realised that my engagement ring was missing.  A momentary fear gripped me, wondering where it could possibly be.  I could not find it - and the bus was due.  On board, I surrendered this loss to the Lord.  What blew out of my garden that moment:  bitter aloes of frustration or sweet spice of patience and trust? Even as I led the missionary prayer time, I trusted the Lord for that treasured ring.

When disappointments, difficulties, sorrow, testings, trials, rebuffs jolt us, our heart response counts. How do we react when distressed?  When the Lord took home our beloved 5 month-old- son, our neighbour observed the reaction to our deep sorrow,
(the peace of God and trust in His resurrection), claiming he now knew what it meant to trust the Lord.

The bride did not build her garden alone: no bridegroom would allow his beloved to prepare the soil on her own. Christ Himself prepares the garden, the trees and spices, so that the fragrance flows when the storms of life come.   

Notice that the garden was walled, and the waters were living waters. In Java little pools of stagnant water littered the padi fields.  They were periodically drained
(ideally each 10 days) to prevent malarial parasites maturing. These pools contrasted with rivers, wildly rushing down from mountains after heavy rain, carrying debris and finally flowing to the sea.  The secret of the garden is the living waters.

In testing times, what outflows from your garden? Is there a stench of bitterness and impatience or the fragrance of cinnamon and spices?   When you knew sorrow, did you question or fret or allow the myrrh fragrance to waft to others.  When disappointed or hurt, did you nurse a bruised spirit, or did the saffron and spikenard enrich the air of your garden? Did your family feel it?   Did your friends sense the fragrance?

We need a fresh infilling of the living water to cause our spices to grow and their fragrance flow from the garden.

Four days later, I joyfully found my engagement ring; and I thanked the Lord for teaching He was able to guard my garden during such testing.  

GWENDA