Me- "Cha -Cha, can you tell me why I named the garden Seeds Of Hope, read the sign for clues"
Cha- Cha-"Well, I would say because, people always see the bad here from t.v. or the newspaper, but the garden can be like a way for them to see there is good here. We can have hope, in dat, things wont always be bad, good can come from our neighborhood too."
I love the promise that is given in Joel 2:25-26. I believe it it a promise that can still be used today. We serve a God who is in the business of redeeming all that was and is lost and broken. When I look around my hood sometimes I see mounds of hopelessness. Even today, I had a precious woman/friend encourage me not to give into the hopelessness I see. She encouraged me to trust and believe in a God that is BIG and full of HOPE. I found myself overwhelmed with tears this afternoon as the construction for our community garden came to a close. There is still a little more work to be done but the best part is complete. I explained in detail to Cha Cha that day how I believed that this garden will work as a reminder to us of the difficulties of ministry as well as the joys of seeing fruit come to pass after months and years of laboring. I explained to her how here in the garden we plant seeds to bring fruit to eat, yet, as a ministry God has called us here to plant seeds that will hopefully one day produce spiritual fruit in the lives of all those we minister to.
My prayer is that God will use this garden to advance His kingdom and that many on the westside of Montgomery,AL will hear and be exposed to the truth of the gospel. I pray that hope will reign here, and that all the years that the principalities of this world have tried to use racism, oppression, abuse, drugs, rape, sodomy, fatherlessness, poverty to destroy those around me, will end with restoration. God can restore all that was once lost. The same God that made that promise in Joel thousands of years ago is the same God we serve today. He is Jehovah-Shammah, as well as El-Elyon!
What a reminder.
“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm— my great army that I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the LORD your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed."
-Joel 2:25-26
