When Man Fails, God Prevails

One of the great joys in my life was to volunteer with the Garden of Innocence. The part I played was to lead the dove ceremony, an integral part of the burial of abandoned babies at the Garden. During each funeral service, there is a moment when the baby or babies are honored with the release of a beautiful white dove along with three doves for the Trinity. Then the names of all the babies in the Garden are read followed by the release of 50 or more doves to honor them. It falls upon me to maintain the list of names of all the babies in the Garden.

On Friday, January 16, 2016, I had just prepared my documents for the next day’s burial of three babies at the Garden when I got a call from Rebecca, our president. She said that the second of the three babies, Hollis, was the 150th baby to come into the Garden. I was shocked.

She asked if I had made any special arrangements for this occasion. Since it hadn’t occurred to me when I prepared the documents, I had to answer, “No.”
I felt terrible as I realized I failed to make anything special to recognize this milestone for the Garden.

Graciously, Becca said, “That’s okay; just make special mention of it in your address during the dove ceremony.”

With a heavy heart and much guilt weighing on me, I walked up the hill to the Garden of Innocence at El Camino Memorial Park on Saturday morning. When I reached the Garden I stood in awe and amazement.

The Garden was strewn with a massive bed of flowers. In the circle of the graves, a large number of huge flower arrangements were laying amongst the 100 plus grave stones of our babies. Apparently, someone of great honor was interred the day before. They had so many flowers that someone was moved to place the excess flower arrangements on the graves of our babies.

 
Array of Flowers at the Garden Of Innocence – San Diego

I was astounded. Here, in the midst of my failure, God stepped in and touched the heart of someone to step up and honor our Garden babies.
But it wasn’t too long thereafter that I discovered this was not the only miracle of the day where God moved hearts and minds to overcome my failure to recognize the 150th baby.

As planned, I did make note of the 150th baby during the dove ceremony and acknowledged God’s part in the amazing display of flowers in spite of my failure.

The Bed of Flowers Blanket the Garden

Caskets of Babies Dorothy, Hollis and Murray

Flight of the Doves

During the proceedings I noticed someone filming the ceremony with what appeared to be professional grade equipment, something not normally present for a Garden event. When the program was over, I realized that it was a local News Station photographer that was there documenting the proceedings for the evening news.

Curious as to how that came about, I asked the gentleman the question burning inside of me, “How is it that you are here today?”

He replied, “One of our new employee’s saw the announcement for the babies in the newspaper’s obituary column yesterday and, having never heard of the Garden of Innocence, sent me out to document the event.”

Another gift from God!

That night, the local NBC News television station presented a wonderful documentary reporting on the day’s event and the 150th baby entering the Garden of Innocence.

TURNING POINT

How gracious is our God, that when we in our weakness fail in something that has some significance for others, He kindly steps in and moves hearts and minds to make our failure of non-effect. When man fails, God prevails is not a simple adage, but a precious truth. Experiences such as these help us to boldly engage our calling without the fear of failure compromising our passion.

(See Garden of Innocence Website at www.gardenofinnocence.org for more information regarding our mission.)

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