We took a field trip today to the Botanical Gardens for our Children’s Equipping Ministry Song of Solomon class. It was a lot of fun. I enjoy spending time with these kids and I love seeing them get new revelation from the Lord. There were some teachable moments besides the ones I had planned (such as doing our lesson in the “secret garden” (The garden enclosed)

Olivia was standing at the tower overlooking the maze (It’s a maze made of bushes that are high enough to block a view of which ways are dead ends) and navigating the others through the maze by telling them to turn right or left. Hannah said “Are you sure we’re going the right way? This doesn’t seem right. It seems like we’re just going in a circle.” and Olivia said “Trust me. I can see where you’re going better than you can.” I thought that was so prophetic and told the kids that’s like how God guides our lives. Sometimes it seems like what He’s doing isn’t working and it doesn’t make sense to us, but He can see where we’re going much better than we can, and if we trust Him, He’ll guide us through.

Also, I thought it was cool that while we were there an airplane with a banner flew overhead. We had talked about airplane banners when we went over the verse “His banner over me is love” and how the banner He flies over our lives is “I love you my daughter/son!” At the time I mentioned that I hardly ever saw those kinds of banners anymore, but sure enough the Lord was kind enough to arrange one to fly right over our heads during our Song of Solomon field trip! (I totally stole the  idea for that lesson from Tracie.  Thanks!)

We talked about how The Botanical Gardens is like the worldwide church, and how each individual garden inside (the rose garden, the boxwood garden, the iris garden, etc.) was like a different church. Although different expressions of the body of Christ look different, we have the important things in common. All those gardens needed sunlight and water to grow, and each are beautiful in their own unique way.  Also, within each individual garden, there were many different kinds of flowers. The rose garden had all different color roses. I likened that to different giftings. There are dancers, singers, musicians, teachers, those who serve by working with the children, making coffee, ushering, etc. And within each of those clusters of different color roses, no one rose was the same. We are all unique to God. It’s all the different colors of roses that makes the rose garden so beautiful.

I’m so glad we went and am so thankful it was the PERFECT day for it. An absolutely gorgeous day!