Fiona Veitch Smith

A Gardener’s Gospel – week 15

I opened my curtains this morning to the beautiful sight of a Norwegian Whitebeam bursting out in full leaf. The silvery green clusters are like fingers on a flexed hand that seemingly, overnight, have been flicked from a clenched fist. But you know what? I knew this was going to happen. While the rest of my garden doesn’t always seem to live up to its promises, the Whitebeam, that towers over everything, can be trusted to come through year after year.

God’s not a head master

Last week I wrote about what we can’t expect from God – answered prayers in exactly the way we expect. I hope I haven’t dampened anyone’s faith. Because I know too that God does deliver on his promises. What I was talking about was presuming upon God with prayers based not on knowledge of Him but on a formula. This does not mean that God is not consistent – He is; He’s consistent in His character.

The Bible tells us that God is always good, always kind and always on the lookout for doing what’s best for us. But, as many of us know, sometimes that goodness and kindness are masked behind ‘tough love’. Yet if all God showed us was tough love, He would be no more than a head master, shaping our character through education. God is a loving Father. Sometimes we need a hug more than we need a life lesson, and we can trust God to know when to deliver and when to withhold.

A divine cuddle

Dorothy, a friend of mine, tells me of a time when she was feeling so low that she cried out to God: ‘I don’t need anything from you other than a cuddle. And not a spiritual cuddle, a physical cuddle. I need to feel you’. But Dorothy knew that was not likely to happen. That evening she went to a prayer meeting and there was a man there who was just visiting the group. Dorothy knew him in passing, but nothing more. Suddenly he got up, walked up to her and gave her the biggest bear hug she’d ever had. ‘There,’ he said, ‘that’s from the Father’.

I love that story. I wish it had happened to me. I’m one of those people who tends to expect tough love more than daddy love, but when I see the Whitebeam flashing its leaves I’m reminded that God never fails to deliver. Good things. Kind things. Nice things.

A cup of kindness

In Catholic tradition there’s a story of a woman called Veronica who gives a cup of water to Jesus on his way to the crucifixion. It’s a simple act of kindness to a dying man. Sometimes, I cry out for someone to give me some water. I have a prophetic gift and frequently receive words of knowledge or prophecy for other people. Even when I’m feeling low myself, I speak what I’m given. And it’s wonderful to see the pain lift from people’s faces as they realise that God does care about them enough to pass on a message through a stranger. Sometimes that word is a warning or correction (never fun to deliver, I can tell you!) but other times it’s a word of kindness and compassion as God reminds us that He is a good God who cares for us. Everyone can speak words of kindness of course, but a word of knowledge, that reveals something hidden that only God and the person involved knew, tells the recipient that God is the one delivering this hug.

Hot chocolate

Last year I had a prophetic word for someone who attended my church. I didn’t know her. A mutual friend brought her to me because she felt I might have something to share with her as she had been bereaved five times in twelve months. I prayed with her and saw a picture of her smashing up a bar of chocolate with a hammer in great anger. Once her anger was vented, she knelt down and gathered up the pieces of broken chocolate, put them in a pot and made hot chocolate. I then saw a line of people at her front door all waiting to get some hot chocolate.

The woman started to cry as I told her this. She said that she was diabetic and just the day before she felt a craving to buy a bar of chocolate and make hot chocolate from it. She said she felt it was the only thing that could bring her comfort. Blow me down, but I think that’s amazing! The interpretation of the word of course is that God will take the brokenness in her life – some of it caused by her own anger – and turn it into a source of comfort for others. I believe this woman will be used powerfully to help others who have been bereaved. That word was a source of immense comfort to her – like a cup of hot chocolate, I suppose, like God delivering on His promises.

The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving towards all He has made.
Psalm 145:13b

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