Life Between Two Gardens

Since Father’s Day, our family and close friends have walked through a season of deep heartache. My mother-in-law entered hospice and recently went to be with the Lord. At the same time, I spent precious days with my sister and mother celebrating my mom’s 70th birthday.

On one side, I’ve felt broken by the loss of my mother-in-law. On the other, I’ve been deeply grateful and joyful to still enjoy my own mother. While one mother’s life was being celebrated, the other came to an end — and I have been trying to rejoice even as my heart bleeds and aches.

Living Between Two Gardens

I can’t stop thinking that I’m living life between two gardens.

There’s the Garden of Eden — the promised place I’ll reach someday, where pain and sorrow no longer exist. And there’s this earthly garden, where suffering and joy so often intertwine.

So, what do we do in the middle of these two gardens? For me, the answer is both. I rejoice, and I mourn. I take life moment by moment. Sometimes I’m celebrating with joy; other times I’m anxious, crying, and broken.

It isn’t easy to live between these two places, but my hope rests on the day I arrive in Eden. In the meantime, I cling to the hope I have in Him, holding on to the hem of His robe and laying myself at His feet. I’m far too weak to do this alone, but somehow, some way, I make it through — because He has promised, and He holds me in the palm of His hand.

Leadership Lessons from the Garden

In leadership, we often assume we must choose between contrasting qualities: confidence or humility, assertiveness or kindness. But what if the most transformative leaders hold both? What if true strength is found in the tension — living between two gardens?

This paradox reminds me of the Apostle Paul, a man who endured great suffering and yet understood joy and resilience like few others. He wrote:

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”

We carry this treasure in jars of clay — our weak bodies — yet we hold an eternal treasure: peace, joy, perseverance, endurance, love, and, most importantly, compassion toward others. Paul’s focus was not on the perishable container but on the priceless content inside.

Suffering shapes us. It grows compassion. It refines our hearts. It calls us to lead and love differently.

Holding Both Joy and Suffering

Life between two gardens includes both joy and suffering, and both can coexist. Like Paul, I’ve learned to be:

• downcast but not defeated

• mourning but filled with hope

• depleted but not empty

• sorrowful but not hopeless

• broken but not beyond repair

• wounded but not destroyed

• shaken but not forsaken

• lonely but not forgotten

  
  

This paradox — this life between two gardens — is an eternal glory that outweighs our momentary afflictions. It’s facing our sometimes-gruesome reality with hope and optimism, not because we’re strong but because of who Jesus is. The weaker I am, the greater His power is at work within me.

This is what it means to suffer with hope:

“Known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” (2 Corinthians 6:9)

Your Turn

We all live in our own space between two gardens — between what is and what will be. Between pain and promise. Between sorrow and celebration.

What does your life between two gardens look like?

In loving memory of my mother-in-law who lived a life between two gardens but has now reached the promised land where there is no more suffering and no more pain.