I returned to the garden where it all began. The garden where we said I do and vowed to love each other come what may. The garden where our friends and family stood and promised to love and support us in our covenant. 

I always thought I would get married in a church. I grew up in church. I love church. I was even looking for a church when we got engaged. But when I saw the garden, I fell in love. The winding pathways, the fountains and the flowers – they seemed to unfold and open as I walked along until I came to the clearing. It wasn’t a church. Or maybe it was. After all, the first place people came to commune with God was in a garden. What better place to make a covenant to love and honour and enjoy than in a place that resembles the first place where people learned to love and honour and enjoy.

I remember the day well. The warm sun on my skin, the light breeze, people laughing, and me. I remember me. I had never felt so happy in my life. I thought that there couldn’t be anything better than having everyone you love gathered in a garden. The flowers hadn’t begun to bloom, but you could see they were coming. You knew that soon they would be bursting with colour and life.

Life. 

There’s nothing you can do to make a flower bloom. You give it water and sun and attention but that’s where your part ends. Sometimes infertility feels like a flower that won’t bloom. No matter how much care and attention you put into trying to have a baby, no baby comes. 

There were no flowers in the garden when I went back. Everything had been cut down, cut back, and dug up to get ready for next year’s garden. Maybe the garden I’ve been working on needs to be cut down, cut back and dug up. I’ve been hoping, trying wanting to get pregnant, but that’s not happening. I could keep trying or I could look for life in a new place. I could dig up the dream I had and make the soil ready for a new one. Make some space for new life to grow. 

That new life is what I thought of as I walked through the garden. I traced my steps from the years before; by the fountain, around the bushes, along the winding path, down the steps and into the clearing. It’s cold and dark but I feel hopeful because this is my garden. It’s the garden where it all began and it’s the garden that, after Winter comes and goes, will be full of colour and newness and life.

And the Lord will bless Israel again, and make her deserts blossom; her barren wilderness will become as beautiful as the Garden of Eden. Joy and gladness will be found there, thanksgiving and lovely songs. Isaiah 51:3