Dark Days--and Our Flowers Have Never Been So Lush

These warm days of late summer, I often go outside--to hang laundry, take the garbage to the chickens, take out the mail, pick trash up in the yard where the puppies have scattered it, shake the welcome mat, or sweep the porch.

 

Or take a prayer walk around the house.
Because the days are dark--and my heart is sometimes heavy.

But then I notice what God has given us this year--such lush flowers! These cosmos are spilling way over the deck railing into the steps.

 

 The August sunflowers are almost gone now, but the cosmos is still blooming. 

And I thought of how we have cosmos because someone planted a seed. Hannah started some seeds and then someone transplanted them when they were still little--by the corner of the deck steps. 

And despite the tragedies in the news and all the bad news about the evil in the world today,

the flowers grew. They didn't seem to notice. It's good that they could not read the news.

The flowers someone planted just bloomed despite the smoke in the air and the lies in the media and the blunders over in Afghanistan. 

They spilled lush over fences and rails.  

They knew the sun was there and kept their faces toward it. 

They just kept opening their hearts toward the sun, drinking in its light and warmth.

And the pumpkins grew, too. 

This one is a Cinderella pumpkin--grown in our own garden!

Someone planted seeds, and beautiful things grew--flowers to cheer us and pumpkins to turn into pies.

They didn't decide not to grow just because the days were dark and sad and smoky. 

Someone planted seeds and they grew.

And someone planted seeds of love and kindness and mercy.

And beautiful things grew--even though the days were dark and tragic,

even when evil loomed on the horizon.

Love grew and flourished; a seed of forgiveness grew into a beautiful flower of sweet relationship; and the wind blew seeds of kindness all over the globe. 

The media ignored the good news; people overlooked small acts of love and unselfishness in lowly places--such as in humble Christian homes.

 

But those seeds turned into flowers, and the flowers flourished all the more because of the dark days and smoke in the air.