There are four particular gardens mentioned in the Bible. Interestingly each of them are places of peace, but three of them are also places of sadness. However peace and joy wins out in the stories of these gardens. The first garden My sister turned to me and challenged, ‘What’s the use of a sister who composed poetry if she cannot write new words to a favourite tune? I would like to use this tune at my wedding.’ A Bronze armillary with Gurney’s words at Chelsea Flower Show 2015. Four star trade stand award winners We know that moderate-intensity level activity for as little as 2.5 hours a week reduces the risk for obesity, high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, heart disease, stroke, depression and colon cancer, according to the CDC which considers gardening a moderate level intensity activity. Given what it takes to dig multiple 3' deep holes, bend over to plant 1000 bulbs, weed, lug 2-liter bags of soil etc. I'm not sure it's moderate-intensity and I've never been able to confine it to 2.5 hours a week but it's good to know that something that brings me such pleasure is good for me.

Which leads us to our final garden: The Heavenly Garden – the garden of eternal life. Here Eden is restored and we return to the Tree of Life and its healing properties. The second important garden described in the Bible is The Garden of Gethsemane. This was a bittersweet place. It became the garden of suffering and betrayal but before that, it was a place that Jesus liked to go to pray. Presumably it was a peaceful place where he could withdraw from the crowds. Within a generation, Vittoria and Salvatore had achieved the American dream while still maintaining their cultural identity. Yearly, with the help of their eight children (three more had been born on American soil), they planted two crops—a cool-weather winter crop oriented toward vegetables and herbs from their native Sicily, and a warm-weather summer crop that included many of the fruits and vegetables from their new country. The farm continued to prosper, and the family began selling heritage vegetables to local grocery stores and Italian restaurants. In the first garden, we lost our connection to God. In the second Garden, God is found in the midst of our suffering, whilst in the third garden hope is found in resurrection. The final garden is the place of ultimate victory and overcoming. Fully restored! Every garden represents a different stage of our lives and God is in every garden. Considering how well quoted this verse has been over the years, remarkably little is know of the author Dorothy Frances Blomfield Gurney.Near the place where Jesus was crucified was a garden, and in the garden there was a new tomb where no one had yet been laid to rest. And because the Sabbath was approaching, and the tomb was nearby, that’s where they laid the body of Jesus.

The Lord God Planted a Garden By Dorothy Frances Gurney: An All-Creatures Spiritual And Inspirational Archives Poem - poems, This is a much larger leaf design to accommodate the whole verse in one. Accordingly, it has a higher price.A Bungalow Home Vittoria Giunta’s traditional Sicilian “Nanna” cabinet was built by her eldest son in 1926 In this garden Jesus was placed in a new, empty tomb. It would have represented such sadness to Jesus’ followers. But it’s here that the great good news of the resurrection was announced to Mary who at first thought Jesus was the gardener John 20:15 This was the place where Adam & Eve named the animals and tended to the garden. A place where they met with God. The Bible tell us that the trees were beautiful and I believe that everything else was beautiful too. It was the place where God walked in the cool of the evening. How peaceful it must have seemed. But there was betrayal here. Adam and Eve were betrayed by the serpent and they fell from grace. They were turned out of the garden. Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, flowing with water clear as crystal, continuously pouring out from the throne of God and of the Lamb. The river was flowing in the middle of the street of the city, and on either side of the river was the Tree of Life, with its twelve kinds of ripe fruit according to each month of the year. The leaves of the Tree of Life are for the healing of the nations.

Dorothy wrote hymns and poetry, her most famous hymn is possibly ‘O perfect love’, which she wrote for her sisters wedding. According to Gurney, relating the story afterwards, it happened like this: Poetry entered my life fairly late along its finite trajectory, via my dear friend Emily Levine, who has since returned to the void. It has remained a friendship commons, a place to gather with humans I love and parse the meaning of why we are here, for as long as we share this improbable gift of aliveness. None has been more present or more kindred in this poetic adventure than Amanda Palmer. We began reading and reflecting on poems together in public between songs at Amanda’s shows nearly a decade ago. As our lives shape-shifted, as the world shape-shifted, we never stopped: poetry, a metronome of friendship; poems, atoms of time and atoms of trust. And so I have entrusted Amanda with breathing voice into Mary Ruefle’s gorgeous existential exhale of a poem. This verse, beloved to gardeners everywhere, is the fifth stanza of a poem entitled God's Garden by Dorothy Frances Gurney. Then Jesus went with them to a garden called Gethsemane and told his disciples, “Stay here while I go over there and pray.” Taking along Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he plunged into an agonizing sorrow. Then he said, “This sorrow is crushing my life out. Stay here and keep vigil with me.”A series of tree leaves featuring unexpected and charming, sometimes seasonal quotes. Available singly. Each has a 3mm hole on the stalk. They can be hung using nylon line or string. Supplied flat. Can also be simply bent by hand or with pliers for a naturalistic effect.