A Garden of Visible Prayer: Creating a Personal Sacred Space One Step at a Time
Introduction in Book:    I am a gardener and a Christian. It seems God is always close and speaks clearly to my heart whenever I seek Him in a garden. I have always been involved with gardening and growing. Our family business was greenhousing, my maternal grandmother and I would garden together whenever we could and college started with botany and horticulture though graduation came with a business degree.     Many years later when the economy plummeted, I sought the peace of gardening and growing once more. I had already completed the requirements for being an Advanced Master Gardener so I studied and received certification as a greenhouse grower and began working in the industry. As a landscape consultant, I helped many customers with questions and realized how hungry others were for the solace that could be found in a garden.     This sparked a growing awareness to combine the desire to serve God with the talent he had given me. I began creating prayer gardens at St. Francis Retreat Center in DeWitt, Michigan. Because of the size of this Center, 95 acres, the St. Francis Garden Society was created.     I prayed as I worked that others would find a way to come to the gardens. If they could quiet the din of daily life enough it would allow the gentle voice of God to be heard. I felt assured that the Holy Spirit would do the rest and bring them peace. As I planted and weeded at public gardens, church gardens and at the retreat center, visitors would let me know that my prayers were being answered.     I pray that this book will help you to find a way to create either personal or public spaces for prayer. May the journey bring you closer to God. Because it is in our desire to find and please God that we indeed do so.