May 21, 2013

• We are home from a wonderful family vacation in West Virginia.  It was just the best time ever!

  I came  home to the flowers blooming, and so many vivid colors.

   

   

  The roses are phenomenal!  Daniel weathered two climbing Joseph’s Coats over the winter in containers.  They are in almost total shade but are blooming their hearts out.  A friend of his from work gave him three climbers from her late mother’s garden.  They are blooming, too, and are covered with buds.  I want to train them through the railing that is around the north side deck.  

  Some of you know that Daniel is partial to peonies.  We have light pink that are like a single flower, and then deep red and white that are gorgeous double flowers. The deep red are not out yet, but the white and the light pink are.  I picked a bouquet of those for the dining room table.

  

   

   Their fragrance reminds me of a very old story.  I decided to repost it here for what it is worth.

  Springtime Musings, 1992

  Her Daddy loves growing things.  Along our walk and and lane and hither and yon, he has planted peonies.  They grow on his mother’s grave and he loves their lavish colors and extravagant fragrance.

  She is our youngest;  twenty months of energy, smiles and personality.  Like her daddy, she loves growing things.  She has just discovered that peonies have flowers and flowers have smell.  I am working in the flower bed beside the house tonight, and she is fighting a losing battle with wanting to pick the posies.

  The buds are nearly ready to burst.  The plants are loaded.  ”One flower more or less won’t matter,”  I tell myself as her little fingers begin to dismantle a bud.  She works industriously to free some petals and beaming, toddles over to me.  Proudly, she shows me her handful of crumpled flower petals, smells them with long, effusive breaths and then holds them up for me to smell.

  At first, I smell but sweaty baby hand, but then the haunting, lingering smell of spring peonies comes bravely through.

  I watch her glowing face, think of our delight in this child and think of my own Heavenly Father.  Far better than I is He at seeing the beauty and smelling the fragrance in the broken petals that I bring to Him.  Some of it has been done in innocence, as my toddler’s joyous enjoyment of life reminds me.

  But some of it has not been so innocent or carefree.  Yet still, this Father of love can take what has been lost beyond repair and accept what brokenness I offer Him, and loves me and gives me hope.  His love for me transforms something totally worthless and ruined into a thing of great treasure.

   

  It was true twenty-one years ago.  It is true now.
  My heart gives grateful praise.

   

   

  • 8:35 pm
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