The Gardener

For some time it has been on my heart that God is wanting to take His people back to the garden. The Garden of Eden.

Ron had been reading a book called Captivating Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul by John and Stasi Eldredge. He bought a case of them, and started handing them out. He gave one to each of the women at the church, and prayed over us and asked the Lord for His will to be done concerning the issue of womanhood. It was lovely. He also has been giving them out to others, relatives, women who work at Starbucks and where ever God is showing him. He believes that this book is wonderful for women, but that the people who should be reading it, is men.

The book has brought about some wonderful things, understanding, and peace to a lot of women.

Ron has had a heart for women, in a gentle and kind sort of way for a long time. He can go soooooooooooo deep into a person’s heart, without even trying. He’s real unique and different in how he does it, and he doesn’t do it often, but it’s precious and solid. He has a tender side that can understand this plight I will address. And women like him, and the Lord told me, it’s ok, do not be threatened, it’s his call, and they will come to him, and they’ll be in all sorts of places in the journey of life, but let him function with that. Ron is pretty smart, and if we get too wacky or talk too much, he does run for cover (when he should)… haha. He is a man’s man, in every way, so the gentle side here is kind of like something you wouldn’t expect from someone maybe like John Wayne. That’s Ron.

Now our name is Adams.

God is saying, He wants to take us back to the garden. So the Lord begins to reveal to me, Eve’s heart. The shame, the guilt, the grief, the feeling foolish. Can you imagine how she felt? God significantly revealed Eve’s heart to me.

I was meeting with the ladies at the church, and it started coming out how foolish they feel, and this book says some of this. But God was revealing it. Have you ever talked and felt you just should have been quiet? Many women would say “story of my life.” But the expression of God through women will just continually keep flowing. Ron was preaching on this, everything about the redeemed nature of a woman is “relationship”, and Ron said, that is a huge part of the nature of God, and we should not be ashamed of it. How lovely. And how lovely for me, that God has given this man to me.

When I was preaching at the church, concerning the feelings of failure that Eve must have felt… something was happening in the spirit. Something was breaking. Now I could say, maybe this was just for us, but I know Him better than that, and I know what He does, and I believe something was cracking and a stronghold was coming down concerning women. This veil had to be rent in order for women to get back to the Garden.

We cannot possibly comprehend what it would be like to know only the existence of the Garden, and then to be sent out. How could you possibly get over it? And then, the aroma of Adam’s feelings began to seep into the room. He was mad, and he blamed her, and there’s a good possibility he had a difficult time forgiving her and wasn’t too happy with her… (even though, as Ron contends, he was standing right next to her the whole time). The book Captivating states that man sins as in a male sinning, through violence or passivity.

And this through the ages has been there between men and women. He wants us to work through. Think about the world. Not a whole lot of understanding between the sexes in many ways. But that is the way of the unredeemed nature of man and womankind.

As a woman pastor, I have worked with women in varying stages of love for their husbands, and continually worked to ensure women were not replacing their husband with women friends, and merely tolerating their husbands with rolling eyes. Men have such a wonderful sense of, “common sense”… they are just sensible… and we need them, and they need us. I have sought to learn and sense when that “man way”, that gift that God put into a man is functioning. I can “smell” it pretty well, the unredeemed nature of a woman will reject it, but if we smell it when it is functioning, it’s the right path… every time. It doesn’t make sense to us, and we have to trust it. In the same manner, this is the same for a man, with the God given gift placed within a woman… they don’t understand it, but they have to trust it with in us. God loves to put us in situations where we have to trust something we don’t understand.

The women in our church could feel something happening when I was preaching, they said, “Did you feel that!!!” It was amazing. Some of the men were understanding and perceiving. Some weren’t. Ron wants them all to read the book.

God was accosting the division and divisiveness of the snake in the Garden. THAT’S AMAZING. The whole of satan’s goal it to separate us from God, he wants us to question God’s character concerning us. “Hath God really said??? For He knows….” satan is a liar.

I continued to preach, I had planned to go to the gospel of John 20:13 – 31. So, I’m reading along, and the Lord shows me, something fabulous in verse 15. Now we know, God first showed Himself to a woman first, etc., and how wonderful that is, but listen… Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing Him to be the gardener…………………………………….. wait a minute… THE GARDENER!!! Not the custodian, not … well, you understand. For Jesus, He had gone back to the Garden for us. In His time and space, He had fixed our mistake in the Garden. And the first person to see Him was a woman, and she supposed Him to be the Gardener. There’s a whole lot in that. He had restored us. He had forgiven us, He had made it right.

I continued to try to preach and I began to weep, and I looked back to my bible and these words leaped off the page to me “Woman, why are you weeping?” Jesus, standing right there with me, had taken me to the Garden in a moment, to the tomb, in a moment, and was doing something fascinating. He was justifying me, as a woman, to myself first…

Mary went to the disciples – they did not believe her. Mark 16:11

But the words appeared to them as nonsense, and they would not believe them. Luke 24:11

The Lord began to speak to me about my brothers… then my sisters. (in the Lord)

Lord, open their minds to understand the scriptures. (Luke 24:45)

Now, all that being said, God moves on with us.

I began to have dreams of deer.

Dream:
Ron and I are on our property (our home is on 10 acres). And there is a deer path we are trying to find on our property. We are looking, looking, and then he says, oh, there it is, but when I look where he is looking, it’s not exactly there, but a little more over to the right. I say, oh, look there it is. And he looks and it’s a little difficult for him to see… but obvious to me.

I wouldn’t have seen it if he didn’t show me, and he needed me to show him.

The next day, I looked out our window to see two deer in our yard, right next to the house.

The church sent us to Sun Mountain Lodge for an early 25th wedding anniversary present because we love the autumn colors. There are deer everywhere, literally, everywhere. In people’s yards, in town, I even fed one an apple, from about 5 feet away.

We’re driving, Ron says, oh, we just ran over a snake… hours later… WHAT!? We ran over a snake…………………….. Magnificent Jesus.

Ron wants to take me up to a beautiful place, windy, one lane dirt road, 10 miles, dangerous, high cliffs, to the top of Hart’s Pass. Hart’s pass, hart is the name for deer. I was born in Hartford, (Connecticut) named for the place the deer crossed the river (ford), so the settler’s knew where they could cross. The anointing was huge, strong, the presence of God doing something… I released the anointing for His purposes. And it was good. We are talking REMOTE. And there was a whole lot of action going on in the spirit. I saw the lights everywhere that I see at my house all the time. I saw them with my eyes open. I believe those lights are angels with very specific assignments from the Lord.

That was Oct. 10 – 13, 2005.

I continued to have dreams of deer. They were close and friendly. One morning our son came to me and said there were deer on the porch, two of them were on our front porch. That was an odd sight. I believe one of the things that the deer represent are His dear ones, those who are to ford the river into the promised land… the land of the Garden, the land that Enoch found, the land of relationship with Him, unashamed.

Father, thank You for Jesus, so dear to us He is, that He is the Living and Active Word to us, illuminate Him to us in Your word, that we may also become Living Words to those whom you call us to.

Mary Ann Adams