Eden’s Beauty Restored
by Donna Bucher
by Donna Bucher
EDEN’S BEAUTY RESTORED
It spoke to me more than I wanted to hear, yet no words fell upon my ears. Tears dimmed my eyes, but my heart required no eyesight to see what it had known for many years.
Viewing one of the few remaining photographs from my early teen years, I mused, as I had the many times I viewed that photo, on the trepidation pictured on my face. I wondered what imprinted the fear there; did she know what was to come?
The photograph was the final picture taken before my life changed forever.
Staring back at me were eyes filled with hesitancy, as if my younger self both feared being known, while at the same time yearned for connection. She lingered at the margin of the photograph, timid of owning her presence.
While the captured moment betrayed these deeper past truths, it also encapsulated a prophetic truth: soon after, my life would become a wasteland. The actual incident matters little, except that it was representative of other incidents and choices rendering my life a desolate place.
The shy beauty barely visible in the photo, my adult heart intuitively knew. It also knew the weighty grief of watching that beauty crushed by malevolence, desperation, and hopelessness.
Though we tend to mythicize our past in recollection, and our memory is tainted by our present, some things surface in harsh clarity. For me, the retrospective view, while perhaps imprecise, reveals a stark panorama of unmistakable barrenness.
Over the years, my shame and heartache imposed a wandering existence in exile from all that was good and pure about myself. I lived banished to a desolate place of acceptance, which mourned for what was lost forever.
Until one day, a serendipitous comment led me to a fascinating discovery.
Working in a location known by the locals fondly as “The Health Campus,” I enjoy stepping away from the non-stop demands of my job for a walk during lunch time. A series of professional office buildings housing medical practices, laboratories, and imaging centers surrounding a large women’s hospital, the only walking paths are to and through large parking lots. But not far up the road, adjacent to a small residential community, is a natural area with long walking trails through marshes, native brush, ponds, and wooded areas.
A favorite of the neighborhood for jogging, hiking, nature and dog walking, it is a piece of nature nestled in the middle of an otherwise populated area.
Boasting three trails of varied lengths traversing diverse areas, the Noel Dorwart Park offers glimpses of native wildlife and flora. Along with other amateur photographers, I enjoy capturing stunning wildlife and floral photos there.
After walking and hiking at the park for over a year, a colleague mentioned their surprise at the park’s origins. Captivated by what I viewed as my own little Eden, its origins never crossed my mind. But my colleague informed me this little urban paradise was once a landfill —a garbage dump.
In disbelief, I promptly did my own investigation and found her claims to be accurate. Seventy acres of landfill were transformed into a stunning wildlife habitat by the local waste management facility. Desiring to reduce landfill dumping, the facility was active in the community, fostering creative ways to recycle waste. The first of its kind in our area, in essence, The Noel Dorwart Park redeemed garbage for a purposeful garden.
Not long after the conversation with my colleague, while standing on a wooden bridge over the koi pond in the park, I thought about God’s redemptive hand in what felt like my own life’s garbage dump.
Though a harsh homelife took its toll on the younger teen version of me mentioned in the earlier photograph, an even harsher reality greeted me as I spent more time outside my home looking for the love and belonging my abandoned soul craved.
Goodness and purity ravished, tender loveliness trampled under ruthless feet, the fertile soil of an inquisitive mind dried up from neglect and abuse languished in the garden of my soul. My own poor coping choices and insecurities, along with the cruel words of others, sowed the tares of bitterness and resentment in deep furrows of hopelessness.
Upon reflection that day, surrounded by the sublime transformation of a local garbage dump, I remembered the wordless despair I felt about my desolate life and the helplessness that kept me imprisoned within it.
Yet, what felt like years of neglected growth and forsaken landscape had been slowly transformed by God’s unfailing love. A true Master Gardener, where others shook their heads and passed on, God saw exquisite beauty, the same shy beauty that was discarded long ago.
The hands that formed the rugged mountains and carved out valleys, lovingly molded the delicate petals of my soul to reflect the manifold exquisiteness of his nature.
His hand was both gentle and severe as he nurtured the once-vibrant garden back to vitality and pruned or hewed down what was dead and invasive. Often, I saw only the desolation of scars, the leftover marks of what at an earlier time grew in joyful abandon. I sat grieved by the brokenness strewn as trampled flowers, no longer visible amid the relentless weeds of bitterness and depression.
But over time, as He worked the soil of my soul, the discarded debris was worked into the soil, nourishing my soul. Even the weeds plucked up and plowed under helped break up fallow ground, making way for new growth as my soul healed.
His patient hands softened hardened and dry areas, coaxing tiny shoots of hope to thrive and leaves of trust to unfold; reviving the parts of me which were neglected and abused. He encouraged their growth by adding the new beauty of His image upon all. The water of His mercy and forgiveness cleansed and enlivened my soul even as the warmth of His unfailing love caressed every area.
Just as life shrouded in death slumbers in the womb of winter’s stillness awaiting the dawn of spring’s awakening, He nurtured in the dark what was long dead, preparing it for rebirth.
Ever since man’s fall and subsequent exile from creation’s Eden, God has been at work restoring the lost Eden of our souls, renewing His own image within mankind. All creation groans with us as we await complete redemption of the wasteland of sin and corruption within our lives (Rom 8:21-23). We all share the longing for the promised restoration of everything to its original magnificence.
Much the same as sin exiled man from Eden, tainting its beauty, the unfortunate events and sinful choices of my own life wrought a separation from God’s original intent for me. Yet God began working all things for good, bringing life from death, transforming what was meant for evil into His divine purpose.
Looking around the peaceful pond as koi darted behind rocks at my feet and bluebirds trilled a midday serenade, I felt hope surge within my weariness.
Overcome with the sight of such loveliness where once garbage marred the landscape, my heart dared to trust in the Master Gardener’s plan for not only the restoration of Eden’s grandeur but the transformation of my own wasteland into the beauty of Christ.
DONNA BUCHER
Donna is a poet, author, speaker, experienced counselor, hospice and palliative care support personnel, and founder of Serenity in Suffering blog and Substack. Her writings have appeared in various online sites, as well as Prosetrics Magazine, Austur Magazine, Aletheia Today, Calla Press, Vessels of Light, and The Way Back to Ourselves Literary Journal. Donna also has a published devotional through Arabelle Publishing.
Find her on Substack, Serenity in Suffering Blog, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.