Editorial September 27, 1975 Issue

Not a Desert but a Garden

Naomi Price

People who live in countries where there are no sandy deserts are apt to think of such places as perpetually barren. It comes as a surprise when they see what happens after rain has fallen on the apparently sterile ground. Often within only a few days the whole surface is covered with a carpet of colorful flowers.

After witnessing such a miracle one can know why the Arabs sometimes refer to the desert as the Garden of Allah. Though one cannot see them, the ground is full of the seeds of flowering plants. These need only a few drops of water to cause them to germinate. Then they burst into bloom and the whole scene changes.

Does your life experience seem sterile, drab, unfruitful? Don't think of it as a desert place or barren wilderness. It, too, is potentially a place of beauty and inspiration—colorful, productive, and spiritually satisfying. The writer of the prophetic fifty-first chapter of the book of Isaiah said, "The Lord shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody."^{Isa. 51:3;}

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