The Garden Song

While casting the net of my memory to catch some of the songs I sang as a boy, one surfaced which I had not thought about in a very long time.  It is not strange it would have been so deep in my memory since I remember it with such clarity.  It still amazes me how some of these old hymns and songs I sang as a boy are stored away in this old gray matter almost as intact as they were when they were put in storage.  I am sure it has to do more with how many times I was taken to church as a child and sang  along with the people of God the songs of faith. 

 

One of those songs from the days when I was young is "In the Garden."   It was written in 1913 by C. Austin Miles, a man who started out to be a pharmacist and gave it up to be a songwriter.  It is no a t song deep in theology, but still one full of assurances of the presence of God.  "I come to the garden alone, While the dew is still on the roses, And the voice I hear, falling on my ear, The Son of God discloses."  And after that first verse comes the chorus which says, "And He walks with me, and He talks with me,  And He tells me I am His own,  And the joy we share as we tarry there,  None other has ever known."

 

It is one of those hymns I remember singing with my mother and sister in the backseat of that '55 Plymouth which served us often as a choir room, but it is also one I remember from those evening worship services we attended each Sunday.  Maybe it is not steeped in theology as some of our hymns, yet, it is one which provides for those who sing it an assurance that they are not alone and that when we draw apart to be with Him, He is surely going to meet with us.  Wow!  What more reason could we possibly need to go this very moment into a place of prayer?