Flowers

Flowers. I love them. I love how God created them just because they're beautiful - because He loves to look at them, and He knew we would too. As a child, I thought they were pretty, but I didn't take a whole of interest in them. As a teenager, they mostly represented love. I would see my sister's getting flowers from boyfriends, and then husbands. (One of my sisters was given a cactus by a boyfriend. I was young, likely not yet 10, and still I knew this was not a romantic plant. Men, pay attention, this is important.) I would see my mom get flowers from my dad, which she always loves. Although one year he bought her mums. She I think attempted to seem happy about them, but my dad saw right through her. Finally she admitted, "Peter, I don't like yellow mums, I don't like purple mums, I don't like mums!" If you knew my mom you would know that she is one of the sweetest ladies, and every now and then she can get a little feisty. She's Irish after all. My dad found this quite funny and went out to buy her some roses. I was 16 ish at the time. We all got a good laugh about this, but honestly, my mom's dictate for mums rubbed off on me. When I was working for my Church and made several trips to Guatemala I remember the beautiful flowers and gardens I saw there. Also, in my one trip to Israel. Those two particular places were simply beautiful. When people took the time to plant seeds, water them, and work their gardens the results were amazing. Last year I tried to plant flowers. I really did, but I failed. There's no sense in being nice about it, I just totally, utterly, failed. They all died. Really quickly. I use the excuse of having a new baby and recovering from c-section, but even still I know that I could have tried a bit more than I did. So this year, I enlisted my mother-in-law, Viviane, to help me. She claimed to not know much, but she knows a lot more than I do. We pulled out the weeds, added fresh soil, watered them. I'm keeping it simple this year, but I hope to learn more every year. Someday I will have a beautiful garden in my backyard with a porch swing where I can read my Bible and sip my coffee in the mornings. And afternoons. Oh, and after supper with my husband. I love how I can look outside my windows and see my flowers from inside too. My husband knows I love flowers, in fact my friend Jenn pulled him aside when we first started dating and let him on a secret: red gerberas. He didn't waste time, see we were on our way to Guatemala shortly after this, and he found a red gerbera in the local market. He has always bought me flowers, even when we don't have a lot of money, he'll still buy me a few just to tell me he loves me, and appreciates me. Amazing how a someone's day can be brightened with something so simple.