When selling Hope House, our home in Tinytown, as I often called Ebenezer, I enjoyed the opportunity to walk the prospective buyer through the yard in which the Preacher and I (mainly the Preacher) have worked so hard for the last decade. Spring had made promises it hadn鈥檛 kept yet, but she wanted to know which perennials would soon bloom in our gardens.
鈥淚鈥檓 not a gardener, really,鈥� I told her, 鈥渂ut I鈥檒l be glad to tell you what I know.鈥� I pointed to a cluster of rose-like succulents, their edges blushing pink, as they always do in spring. 鈥淭hose are hens and chicks. This is a spirea and there鈥檚 a rose. The lady who lived here before we did brought it from her farm.聽 And I don鈥檛 know what those green fuzzy things are, but they take over. And this dried up looking stuff?鈥� I bent and pulled away some of the small brown leaves to reveal chartreuse below. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 creeping Jenny鈥攊t鈥檒l come back on its own.鈥澛� She nodded; said she recognized it.
We moved round to the back; my favourite part of the yard, especially the raspberry row. God鈥檚 candy, I often told a young grandbean, whichever one happened to be with me. I explained to her how to trim the canes each spring, then remembered. 鈥淥h, hey, there鈥檚 a feral cat buried under that stone at the end of the row. I tried so hard to earn her trust, but in the end鈥nyway, she鈥檚 home now. And would you like me to leave that fountain at the back? It doesn鈥檛 work, but it looks like a sculpture? How about the decrepit willow chairs? And oh, we have lilacs. Lots of them. Three colours!鈥�
鈥淚 love lilacs!鈥� she said. And on it went. She was easy to talk to. Told me she already loves the place the Preacher and I have lived in and loved for over a decade.
But in the end, it wasn鈥檛 the gardens, or the house itself that won her. 鈥淚t鈥檚 all the light,鈥� she said. 鈥淪uch beautiful light in every room.聽 And the room with the garden doors that leads right out to the deck! All that sold it for me,鈥� she said.
Jesus described himself as the Light of the World (John 8:12) He also said, in Matthew 5, that his followers carry that light within them. We who follow him put considerable work into the visible aspects of our faith. On leaving a good impression, on programs and great music. But when it comes to in sharing with others the faith that changes destinies, do we remember that it鈥檚 not our beautiful buildings, our attractive programs, our erudite preaching or brilliant apologetics that wins people over. It鈥檚 the Light of the
World that shines through us. It鈥檚 showing them clearly which door leads to the Lover of our souls and the garden of his delights.
Do we do that? And if so, do we do it enough? I wonder.
