Bouquet of Life

As I drove to my meeting, the bouquet kept catching my eye. It took me a while to realize why.

My mom grew the flowers, and our oldest daughter picked the flowers.  I had the job of arranging the flowers.

It was meant to be a simple bouquet to thank the hostess of my meeting that night, composed of imperfect flowers, twine, a mason jar, and, very possibly, a bug or two. I finally realized it was so much more than the addition of imperfect pieces.  Three generations of hands touched that bouquet; it represented this moment in our lives - my life - so well.

I am blessed to live on the same property with my parents and to have coffee with them every morning, to talk about farm stuff, school, daily moments - to share life with them completely.

I am also blessed at this moment to still have all of my children at home. Our oldest girl is at a tender and capable age, but she is growing quickly, so quickly. She has my heart more than she knows.

That simple bouquet represents one of the sweetest stages of life for me - being sandwiched between two wonderful women - One who has paved the road before me and one who forges new paths behind us.

I don't often treasure these moments like I should, and I am thankful that the simple composition of flowers, a mason jar, and twine made me aware of this special time.  God works like that, using our simple and imperfect vessels to communicate his message and his love.

It Was a Beautiful Day at the Park

It was beautiful at the park today...

I went to the park today, the park I went to often as a kid, the only playground I knew. The weather was crisp and clear with the first hints of fall. My children loved it. But as they ran and played and discovered the new equipment, I found that we had brought extra people with us.



Standing there watching the kids play, I couldn't help but see the old equipment that had been replaced - the slide and merry-go-round and out-dated, metal bucket swings where I spent my childhood. Seeing through eyes of yesterday, I realized lots of people were at the playground, even if no one else could see them.

Wasn't my Pappaw over there on the bench offering me a slice of fresh pear cut with his pocket knife? I'm sure he was ready to sit after pushing me on the swings and watching me run around endlessly. Although the bench has been moved and only a stump remained of the tree that shaded it, I still saw that he had a love for life and me matched by few.

Wasn't my Mammaw waiting for me at the bottom of the slide with a pocket of hard candies including my favorite yellow cellophane-wrapped butterscotch? I bet she was surprised when I announced: "Only SIX more years until I'm a teenager!!" Her fierce love and prayers kept me through those teenage years and well into my early years of motherhood.

I could feel the whispers of my great grandparents in their snug house just down the street. You almost had to press your face to the chain link to see their house on the hill. But they were there, a mystery of old people and old things who didn't make sense to me. I now see so much more than I did then, their love and dedication that brought our family through tough times and good.

And, just over there, at the really basic monkey bars that were repainted for the park updates, I could see myself and two friends just having finished an early morning run the summer before college, soaking up those last few minutes before we transitioned to young adults. Those kids didn't know where life would take them. I see a little more of their stories now, and I'm thankful they had that summer to fellowship and enjoy a friendship that, while true, was eroded by distance and different milestones in life.

Under that oak tree, I can make out the shape of the see-saw in the dusk of a summer night, one that had a sadly short life in the playground and of which nothing remains. I could hear the late teenage couple embarrassingly answering the question posed by other people in the park of whether they were boyfriend and girlfriend... of course, they weren't!  ...if you ignored the fact they had been hanging out together all summer long going on long, meandering walks at night, just like the one that took them to the seesaw at the playground. The four children of that couple were enjoying the park today, even if they can't see that long gone see-saw.

Wiping the sudden and unexpected of onset of tears while pushing my four-year-old in a brand new swing that didn't creak and have peeling paint, I saw all of these people at the park, and I realized that they would be with me every time I came to the park. There love was there surrounding me, those experiences making me who I am. My children didn't see those people, but their lives are touched by them everyday.

It was a beautiful day at the park.

Finding Joy

"Joy" is quite the buzzword here at the beginning of 2019.  Things are either sparking joy or being moved on to File 13 or a donation bin as many people seek to tidy up their lives. 

No doubt, tidying up the external definitely makes us feel a lot better, at least for the short term.  However, where does lasting joy come from?

Two years ago on a wonderful Disney World vacation, I realized that I was seeking joy in the wrong place.  We had experienced two wonderful days at Disney, and I returned to the hotel on Day 2 ready to take on our mid-trip laundry pile.  I grabbed up all of our new clothes for the trip and even a couple of special quilts that had experienced some "trauma" on the trip for one large laundry load.  All was well and good, I was on top of the world and on top of things in general... until I went to pull the load from the dryer. Hark! The boy child had left crayons in his pocket which melted over everything in a spectacular display.  What quickly followed were Google searches, pleas for tips on social media, and my sainted husband making a late night trip to the local Wal-Mart for a bevy of supplies.  I spent a large portion of the night and early morning hours donning rubber gloves and trying a variety of stain busting methods that involved the hotel room bathtub filled multiple times with hot water and LOTS of trips to the hotel laundry room. 

I felt angry, cheated, underappreciated, foolish for not checking pockets, embarrassed, and generally distraught.  I carried those feelings into  Day 3 and unfortunately shared those angry feelings with the ones I love most.

Then it hit me - I had been taking joy in THINGS. 

All things are perishable and destined to become dust. The Bible tells us to take our joy in the Lord. How much easier is it for the Devil to steal our joy when we put it in things, experiences, and people???

Those new clothes were destined for the trash bin at some point.  That point just came a LOT sooner than I expected. 

We can let such things destroy us, or we can take our joy in the imperishable, ETERNAL God. Which do you choose?

"Little" Obedience

Obedience.  Obedience isn’t a word we like to think about, but it is a necessary word.  In our house, “because I said so” is a frequently repeated phrase.  When we ask for our children to obey us, we want them to act immediately.  Delayed obedience is disobedience.  And disobedience puts us outside of the circle of God’s will.  Delayed obedience, likewise, places children outside the protection of their parents. When we tell a child not to run in a street or touch a hot stove, we need them to trust us and act immediately – even when it doesn’t make sense to them. To not do so can mean serious harm for the child.

In the same way, God wants immediate obedience from us… even though WE don’t always understand why.  In fact, we often think of obedience in big terms – leading God’s children out of Israel, building an ark when the world has never seen rain before, or being missionaries in a hostile country.  But we need to be obedient even in the small acts that don’t make sense to us.  Things that are so simple that we feel surely God isn’t asking us to do that.

In 2 Kings Chapter 5, Naaman is a well-known and well-respected army commander.  He leads thousands of men, and the king looks upon him favorably.  However, Naaman suffers from a skin disease.  We don’t know exactly what the disease is, but it is clearly a torment to him.  Naaman’s servant girl tells him of a prophet in Israel who can heal him. With the king’s blessing and under great expectations, Naaman undertakes a big journey with gifts of gold, silver, and clothing in tow.  When he finally reaches Elisha’s home, Elisha sends a messenger out to meet Naaman and tells him to wash seven times in the Jordan River.  “What?!” Naaman is angry.  He is an important man who has traveled many miles and put his life on hold with the expectation that this great prophet would come out and call upon his God over Naaman.  Instead, he is told by the prophet’s servant go wash in the local body of water that Naaman deems well beneath those of his own homeland.  Blessedly, Naaman’s own servant speaks in wisdom, and says, “My father, would you not have done a more difficult thing? How much more so can you do this?”  Naaman did as Elisha commanded, and he was healed.  It was so easy it didn’t make sense.

In one of my social media groups, a woman found out she and her husband were pregnant with their sixth child.  This was an unwanted surprise, and they made plans to visit an abortion clinic.  On their way to the clinic, they stopped at a gas station.  A stranger went out of her way to walk up to the mother, smile at her, wish her a good day, and say “God bless you!” The reluctant mother felt her attitude shift. At the appointment, during the consultation prior to surgery, she just felt they needed to leave.  Crying, she urged her husband to go, and leave they did.  They scheduled a regular maternity appointment with an OB/GYN and are excitedly looking forward to the arrival of baby number six in August.

What do we know about the woman at the gas station?  -  The one who smiled and went out of her way to bless that mother  -  For all we know she had a terrible morning where her kids griped at her about putting on their shoes for school, maybe someone cut her off in traffic, maybe her boss was being unreasonable, maybe she just didn’t feel like smiling at anyone.  What we do know is that she did.  When God told her to walk up to a total stranger and bless that stranger with a kind smile and words, she had no idea the role she was playing.  She just did it because God said so.

These acts of “little” obedience show our big faith and strengthen our relationship with God.  We don’t always need to know how our part in God’s will work out.  We just need to follow and obey.  So the next time, you feel the Holy Spirit telling you to help someone reach something on a high shelf at a grocery store or smile at a homeless person or offer your snack or open your home for a playdate or invite someone for coffee…do it.