Around 2009, I saw, in my mind’s eye, a group of people sitting around a covered patio in my backyard, singing and praising God. The idea persisted and I began writing down what I saw: a place to have conversations about God and with God, a place to pray and sing, a place with water and plants. Page of my journal that first mentions a "leading" from God about the patio in 2009 April 2011 journal entry about the patio Over the next two years I kept journaling about this imagi

Over the last several years something in me had changed. Tired of "doing my own thing" with lousy results, tired of living an on-the-fence Christianity, I made a decision to believe the truth of God's Word and live purposefully. Now that I was serious about living a faith-life, I was more aware of God’s action and presence in every day life. Could this recurring idea of a prayer garden be a testing ground? I paid attention to quiet inner promptings I used to ignore. Sometimes

Gardening is in my bones. Growing up, we grew field corn and watermelons and raised cows on eighty acres in South Texas, a flat land of sandy soil, fruit stands, and people living on a shoestring. As a child, I remember picking fresh vegetables with my mother, plucking a cucumber from the vine and taking an earthy bite right then and there. The wonder of pulling peanuts out of the ground with my father and the rich smell of them roasting in the oven is a vivid memory. Years l