• Home
  • About
  • Books
    • My Father is the Gardener
    • Godโ€™s Word for Gardeners Bible
  • Devotions Blog
  • Events
  • News
  • Plant Guide
    • Plant Index โ€“ Godโ€™s Word for Gardeners
    • Plant Research
    • A-to-Z Primer of Plants from Godโ€™s Word
  • Contact
  • Search

Mobile Menu

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • Home
  • About
  • Books
    • My Father is the Gardener
    • Godโ€™s Word for Gardeners Bible
  • Devotions Blog
  • Events
  • News
  • Plant Guide
    • Plant Index โ€“ Godโ€™s Word for Gardeners
    • Plant Research
    • A-to-Z Primer of Plants from Godโ€™s Word
  • Contact
  • Search
  • Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to secondary navigation
  • Skip to main content

Garden In Delight

Grow your garden, flourish your faith

Header Left

  • Home
  • About
  • Books
    • My Father is the Gardener
    • Godโ€™s Word for Gardeners Bible
  • Devotions Blog
  • Events
  • News
  • Plant Guide
    • Plant Index โ€“ Godโ€™s Word for Gardeners
    • Plant Research
    • A-to-Z Primer of Plants from Godโ€™s Word
  • Contact
  • Search
  • Home
  • About
  • Books
    • My Father is the Gardener
    • Godโ€™s Word for Gardeners Bible
  • Devotions Blog
  • Events
  • News
  • Plant Guide
    • Plant Index โ€“ Godโ€™s Word for Gardeners
    • Plant Research
    • A-to-Z Primer of Plants from Godโ€™s Word
  • Contact
  • Search

Find Garden Hope in Psalm 146

Hope is a garden defined! By its very working, the garden gives us something to look forward to โ€” a good, glorious growth taking place or soon to dazzle us, one that lifts our hearts whenever we imagine it. Find Garden Hope is a 7-part devotional series for the Lenten season, matching Godโ€™s Word to garden antics and imagery and preparing our hearts to celebrate Christโ€™s resurrection with deeper union and delight.
Our journey to find garden hope begins in Psalm 146โ€”in hopeless places.

Home » Book Excerpts » Find Garden Hope in Psalm 146
star of Bethlehem leaves peeking out of snow cover

by Shelley S. Cramm In: Book Excerpts, Find Garden Hope on Feb 18, 2021

Our journey to find garden hope begins in Psalm 146โ€”in hopeless places. These Words lead us into lifeโ€™s deepest sorrows, the painful, woeful conditions that rub raw the very knowing of who we are and what we hold onto. Let the Gardener-Lord meet us in somber, despairing depths with the resounding reality that personal traumas are precisely where God brings His blessing of hope.

Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.
He is the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in themโ€”he remains faithful forever.
He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.
The Lord reigns forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the Lord.

Psalm 146:5-10 NIV

Oppressed โ€” those living and working in unjust situations, treated unfairly, given no dignity.

Hungry โ€” desperate to eat, no money for food, no energy to sautรฉ even dandelion greens, cut off from the bounty of the earth, deprivation creating constant, haunting tension.

Prisoner โ€” confined rightfully or not, held on hard surfaces by hardened hearts, dull and dismal.

Blind โ€” without privilege to the great joys in pleasing sights, colors, forms and dimensions, whether found in the environment or found in the heart, for spiritual blindness is the worst.

Fallen โ€” stumbled, staggering, strength stolen, physically faltering; robbed of stamina, taken out of the fight.

Foreigner โ€” surrounded in strangeness, missing clues and connection to culture, disoriented, isolated by the inside jokes of idiom.

Fatherless โ€” missing validation, reassurance, direction, help and belonging to someone as their most precious gem.

Widow โ€” a half with a hole, a stem without its roots, a gardener without a garden, suffering a severance tearing through the heart.

Find Garden Hope

Who can endure downtrodden existence with uplifted spirit? Those who hope in the Lord. How does one endure death and dead-end ways all around them without dying themselves? By the blessing of hope in the Lord.

Our faith in Jesus transfers Godโ€™s righteousness to us and he now declares us flawless in his eyes.[a] This means we can now enjoy true and lasting peace[b] with God, all because of what our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, has done for us. Our faith guarantees us permanent access into this marvelous kindness[c] that has given us a perfect relationship with God. What incredible joy bursts forth within us as we keep on celebrating our hope of experiencing Godโ€™s glory!
But thatโ€™s not all! Even in times of trouble we have a joyful confidence, knowing that our pressures will develop in us patient endurance. And patient endurance will refine our character, and proven character leads us back to hope. And this hope is not a disappointing fantasy,[d] because we can now experience the endless love of God cascading into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who lives in us![e]

Romans 5:1-5 TPT

With God, hope flourishes in suffering with perseverance and character, and a growing embrace of Godโ€™s love and marvelous kindness, poured out long ago and constantly.

a snow covered garden pot sparkles the sunshine and beckons to find garden hope

To the eye of the gardener snow is no winding sheet, none of the covering of death; it is the warm wrapping mantle of beauty asleep. How can those who do not garden . . . keep warm their hearts in winter? They are as those who have no hope.
โ€” Mrs. Francis King, Pages From a Garden Note-Book, 1921

Only God, that desert-blooming, magnificent Maker, will hold onto us through any trauma, tragedy, and suffering loss. He remains faithful forever; he is there to uphold, lift up, sustain, watch over, and give a gracious outcome to every humbling event we suffer. No matter where He begins, He always moves toward glorious rejoicing:

The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God.
Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts,
โ€œBe strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.โ€

Isaiah 35:1-4 NIV

Prayer: O Lord, let me turn to You in every despair. Help me to see that turning to You is choosing not to be hopeless, but embracing the One who will make me strong and unafraid. You will wait with me while you divinely overturn things; you will come to save me, for you are my Savior (Isaiah 35:4). Flood me heart and mind with productive Words and a puttering singsong โ€” let everything in me become hope-FULL.

dusty miller blanketed with snow whispers the way to find garden hope
My Jesus, help me see snow and all it’s metaphor as a “warm wrapping mantle of beauty asleep,” as Mrs. Francis King reflected.

Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.
Psalm 25:5 NIVโ€ƒ

Linger in these Hope-Full passages:
Psalm 146:1-10, Psalm 25:1-5, Isaiah 35:1-7 , Romans 5:1-5

Hope is a garden defined! By its very working, the garden gives us something to look forward to โ€” a good, glorious growth taking place or soon to dazzle us, one that lifts our hearts whenever we imagine it. Find Garden Hope is a 7-part devotional series for the Lenten season, matching Godโ€™s Word to garden antics and imagery and preparing our hearts to celebrate Christโ€™s resurrection with deeper union and delight.

Gods Word for Gardeners book in mustard greens

The devotional essays of Find Garden Hope were originally published in the โ€œGarden Toolsโ€ section of Godโ€™s Word for Gardeners Bible under Hope, ยฉ2014 Shelley S. Cramm. See page a-40 to study by the Book.

Photo Credits:
ยฉ2021 Shelley S. Cramm Our Texas garden is snow covered! Coincidentally-timed for the first of this Lenten series with the snow-garden quotation!
Find Garden Hope meme featured Narcissus tazetta โ€˜minnowโ€™ from our garden in 2019

NIV denotes Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Versionยฎ, NIVยฎ. Copyright ยฉ 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.ยฎ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The โ€œNIVโ€ and โ€œNew International Versionโ€ are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.ยฎ
TPT denotes Scripture quotations taken from The Passion Translationยฎ. Copyright ยฉ 2017, 2018 by Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ThePassionTranslation.comโ€ƒ
Footnotes:
a.Romans 5:1 Or โ€œhaving already been declared righteous.โ€ What bliss! We are declared righteous in the eyes of the Holy God. This is the wonder of grace!
b.Romans 5:1 Or โ€œLet us enjoy peace with God.โ€ The Greek word for peace is eirene and can also mean โ€œto joinโ€ (as in a dove-tail joint). We have entered into the union of our lives with Godโ€™s peace and enjoy lasting friendship with God. The Hebrew word is shalom, which means abundant peace and well-being.
c.Romans 5:2 Or โ€œgrace.โ€
d.Romans 5:5 Or โ€œThis hope does not put one to shame.โ€
e.Romans 5:5 Or โ€œwas given to us.โ€

FacebookTwitterShare

Related Posts

You may be interested in these posts from the same category.

Shelley's new book My Father is the Gardener photographed in rose petals

Preview my New Book

Parable of the Fig Tree told by a home garden fig

One More Year: Parable of the Fig Tree

mosaic portrait of Christ from Stations of the Cross at Santa Barbara Old Mission

Find Garden Hope in Christ

breezy guara flowers seem to garden dance in the wind

Find Garden Hope for Palm Sunday

daffodil tips ready to dazzle the first day of spring

Find Garden Hope in Spring

morning light on Lenten roses helps with waiting out the winter

Find Garden Hope in Waiting

various Bible plant seeds piled to lead us to find garden hope

Find Garden Hope in Abraham

Esther's Jewish name meant myrtle helping to find hidden hop

Hidden Hope in Esther

herb garden planted for family Thanksgiving feast

Gather Us: An Herb Garden’s Lesson

olive fruits on branches

Pinnacle of Garden Prayers

garden path invites prayer

Garden Prayers for Persecutors

blooming beauties

Prayers That Bring Them Back

« Previous
Next »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Rose Naomi O'Brey

    February 19, 2021 at 5:42 pm

    Thank you, Shelley, your gift is beautifully displayed here!

    Reply
    • Shelley S. Cramm

      February 25, 2021 at 10:19 am

      Thank you, Naomi! You and I are united in our love for God’s beauty!!

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • A-to-Z Primer of Plants from God’s Word
  • About Shelley S. Cramm
  • Blog
  • Book Table
  • Books
  • Checkout
  • Contact
  • Continuing the Biblical Botanical Gift Book Series
  • Devotions Blog
  • Events
  • Events & Speaking
  • Family Garden
  • God’s Word for Gardeners Bible
  • Home
  • In the News garden in Delight links
  • Modern Calendars Page
  • News
  • Plant Guide
  • Plant Index – God’s Word for Gardeners
  • Plant Research
  • Proclamation of Faith
  • Resources
  • Speaking Calendar
  • Speaking Topics
  • test events

Site Footer

Garden in Delight - with Author Shelley Cramm
FacebookInstagramPinterestLinkedIn

Keep in touch with garden in Delight

Your information will never be shared with any third party.

Copyright © 2023 ยท Isaac Gardens, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Website by Stormhill Media
Log in