Life Style
ROYAL PARK PLACE
Chaplain’s Corner
I am honored to have a goldfinch bird figurine from my mother-in-law’s collection, which I display on a shelf (out of reach of my grandchildren😉). Recently, my husband Dave came inside and said, “There are some
creation became and remains hard work, and can sometimes feel like a losing battle. What’s to keep us from losing hope? We find the answer in Revelation 22:1-3, the last book of the Bible, where we read about another garden: The angel showed me (the apostle John) the river of the water of life…on each side of the river stood the tree of life…the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. This is a vision of the ETERNAL garden where those who believe will live forever.
beautiful real-life goldfinches in the garden!” I spotted them darting among the zinnias and we commented on how much Mom would have enjoyed watching them. A few days later, Dave again mentioned the goldfinches, but his tone was not as affectionate. “Look what those finches are doing to the zinnias!” he muttered, showing me a few petals on an otherwise picked-clean stem. Dave enjoys gardening but likens it to a wrestling match — shooing the robins out of the raspberries, scaring the blackbirds out of the tomatoes, and waving the finches out of the zinnias. It’s like what happened in the Garden of Eden, when mankind fell into sin. The VERY GOOD world God had created in perfect harmony became a “wrestling match” between good and evil. In Genesis 3:17-19 (NIV), the first book of the Bible, we read: Through painful toil (mankind) will eat food from the ground…it will produce thorns and thistles…by the sweat of your brow you will eat your food… What should have been a delightful existence caring for God’s perfect
We sometimes wonder how we can live between these two gardens — Eden and Eternity — especially in times as challenging as these. We look to JESUS, who visited a garden before giving his life to
bridge the gap for us, to give us hope of one day standing by the river of life. Jesus, God’s son, bore the brokenness of this world upon His shoulders. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus anguished over His Father’s command to stretch out His arms on the cross, even though He was the Creator of the perfect garden, and He rules in the eternal garden. In Hebrews 5:7-9, we learn that during Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent
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www.RoyalParkPlace.com (616) 772-2224 | rpp@provlife.com | 500 Parkside Drive | Zeeland, MI 49464
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