Columbus resident Cecile Smith’s first book, Connecting With God in the Garden, was published in April. Described on the cover as “an inspirational journal for all seasons,” the book opens with an explanation of how Smith heard God’s voice for the first time in her garden. 

While looking at the sky, “I heard these words in my heart: I am here with you every day beneath my endless sky. I have given you all these things so that you can know me. Nature is the revelation of my very self, and if you look closely enough and listen in the breeze, I will whisper to you and you will hear my voice.”

After that, she returned to her garden daily to converse with God through nature. She cites simple events that became messages from the Lord, such as, “A variety of insects gathered on the sedum affirms the power of community” and “Limbs gently swaying in the breeze suggest that I too can sway with the vicissitudes of life.”

Smith’s book is her effort to help others converse with Christ in nature. She offers simple criteria for discerning whether it is God’s voice one is sensing: “A word, thought, idea or feeling – that is not your own – will immediately enter your mind or heart. … His message is always full of love … (and) you gain a deep, inner feeling of peaceful contentment.”

Although Smith began writing the content for Connecting With God in the Garden a decade ago, she didn’t intend  for her reflections to become a book. “I kept my writings to myself,” she said. 

But when she shared them with her mother, a devout Catholic, writer and lover of nature who is now 100 years old, her mother responded by asking for 10 copies to give to friends. 

After that, as Smith continued sharing her writings with people who became deeply affected by them, she began putting together a manuscript to eventually have published. However, she had not yet included guidance on how to communicate with the Lord. 

“I thought most people who were already devout would know how to contemplate in the garden, and all they needed were my reflective poems to get them started,” she said. But her editor urged her to incorporate instructions for readers to begin their own  communication with Christ through nature. As a result, the first section of her book helps people understand and cultivate this communication.

“After all,” Smith said, “(God) spoke to our first father and mother, Adam and Eve, in the garden every day. This is how we began our human heritage and how we must continue, for He gave us all these things (in nature) so we can know Him.” She cites in her book a verse from Romans 1 in which Paul says that God is “able to be understood and perceived in what he has made.”

Connecting With God in the Garden is organized into two parts, the first explaining and emphasizing personal communication with God. The second part is divided into four sections, one for each season. Poems by Smith, saints’ quotes, Scripture verses and reflection invitations are all followed by black spaces in which readers can write their thoughts. 

Even for winter, Smith offers ways to survey what is happening in nature – what she describes as “the slumbering landscape” – and acquire inspiration and messages from the Lord. 

I was surprised at how quickly Smith’s method helped me to find God in nature once I took time to sit alone, in silence, and be open to how He was speaking to me. Trees, shrubs, flowers and the sky  provided answers when I asked the Lord for His perspective or guidance. 

As for Smith’s personal life, the writer maintains an impressively active lifestyle. After homeschooling her children when they were young, she now has many grandchildren and owns and operates a Pilates studio where she trains and teaches.

Connecting With God in the Garden is available on Amazon, Target.com or Barnesandnoble.com. To learn more about Smith and her work, visit her website, cecilesmith.com.