Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our reading titled, In The Garden, was written by Alice and Kida.

My dad loved being outdoors in God's creation, camping, fishing, and rock hunting. He also enjoyed

working in his yard and garden, but it took lots of work. He spent hours pruning, hoeing,

planting seeds or flowers, pulling weeds, mowing the lawn, and watering the yard and garden.

The results were worth it, a landscaped

lawn, tasty tomatoes, and beautiful peace roses. Every year he pruned the roses close to the

ground, and every year they grew back, filling the senses with their fragrance and beauty.

In Genesis, we read of the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve lived, thrived, and walked with God.

There, God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground, trees that were pleasing to the eye

and good for food. I imagine that

perfect garden also included beautiful, sweet-smelling flowers, perhaps even roses, minus the thorns.

After Adam and Eve's rebellion against God, they were expelled from the garden and needed to plant and care

for their own gardens, which meant breaking up hard ground, battling with thorns and other

challenges. Yet God continued to provide for them, and he didn't leave humanity without the beauty

of creation to draw us to him.

The flowers in the garden remind us of God's continued love and promise of a renewed creation,

symbols of hope and comfort.

Today's Our Daily Bread Devotional Scripture reading is from Genesis chapter 2,

verses 8 and 9, and chapter 3, verses 16 through 19.

Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden, and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God

made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground, trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.

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