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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

A thing of beauty is a joy forever


3:43 p.m. Today's project was to help my daughters with their vehicle needs. I accompanied Heather to a body shop in Corona, the aftermath of a fender bender, so she made plans to drop her car off again on Monday. And I got to spend some sweet time with my daughter. Yes!


Heidi needed two front tires, and decided to use the tire place downtown that had served us so efficiently--and cheaply-- when we replaced the RV's shredded tires last month.


I wasn't comfortable with her standing around by herself in that area of Riverside, so I followed her in my Jeep. Also, if they were busy and there'd be a long wait, we could go off and have a little snack or coffee together. Frankly, I was hoping this would be the case, like any mom of a grown daughter looking forward to spending some mom and daughter time!


MG Tire is no slacker, though--they pulled her car right in, and told us, "20 minutes." No sense in leaving, sigh...The receptionist politely changed the tv from a Spanish channel without our even asking, having no way of knowing that I speak Spanish and that Heidi could use the opportunity to learn a bit more for her mission trips to Calvary Chapel's Mexico ministry, Casa del Pastor.


So, Click! There, of all the shows on earth, one I thought was defunct, was Jerry Springer!! I kid you not--within the time it took to get up and go sit in my car, three nuts were in a wild fist fight with the crowd egging them on. I think the 7 foot "security guards" could have broken it up instantly, but what would be the fun in that for the crowd, who were there for just that reason? Lord, help this nation!


All went well for Heidi's car, and we headed back home. After organizing my business supplies, I headed out to the garden to water the seedlings, which are coming along nicely. I spied a faded, unopened bag of seeds and thought, "Why not just plant these flower seeds? Doesn't look like there's going to be a heavy frost any time soon, and they'll make a nice row in the middle of the garden if they last that long!" I won't plant the "serious" garden until next spring, so there's space to spare.


I kept staring at the planting instructions looking for depth to plant, how far to space apart, etc., but found nothing. What was up with that? Eventually I found the fine print instructions that said to use a commercial spreader or to "hand-broadcast" (scatter) the seeds lightly on the ground. Wow--just like biblical times! "A sower went to sow some seed..." The air was very still, so without incident, I scattered the 44,900 seeds the package claimed to contain, raked them over lightly, and sprinkled them with my watering can.


Isn't it amazing that plants of such incredible beauty as flowers, call for so little care? By contrast, tending my vegetable garden was an intense daily undertaking, even keeping me up nights consumed with plans for the next step, or the next assault on the pests, just neverending! Vegetables reward a family with nutritious food, healthy, renewed soil and daily exercise, so the work entailed is justified in my view. But it is pleasant, for a change, to reap a lovely reward for minimal effort--to "let go and let God," as we say so often. Truth be told, Jesus reminded us in Luke 12:27 in his discussion about worry, that somehow flowers do just fine with no worry or fuss at all! "Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, and yet I say to you even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."


The simple, relaxing joy provided by beautiful flowers began for me today, and teaches me a precious lesson on trusting God, and letting Him do His wonderful work.


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