Flower From Our Father

 

    Have you ever wondered what the flowers might have been like in the Garden of Eden?  I'm sure they were the most beautiful flowers ever to appear on this earth.  Our loving Father would have filled the Garden with beauty and color and variety to thrill his beloved children, Adam and Eve.

    I hope they appreciated the perfect flowers He would have provided -- with delicate petals and rich color, and the sweetest fragrance imaginable.

    Alas, perfection is no longer within our grasp on this ole earth, but nonetheless, flowers still abound and their beauty is still amazing and glorious, thank you very much, our Father!!

    The beautiful color of the hydrangea above is delightful.  It sat in a pot in the shade on the boardwalk in Duck, North Carolina, along with some other beauties that brought a smile to my face.

    "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights," James 1:17.

    These delicate blossoms grow on a vine that adorns a white picket fence in Colonial Williamsburg.  I don't know what they are (maybe you do?), but they so pretty!

    I know what these lovely blossoms are since Virginia is abloom with azaleas in the Spring.  My mother loved azaleas and had many bushes full of white and fuschia blossoms crowded together on each limb.  They only last a few weeks, but they are magnificent during that time.  I can well-imagine that azaleas will bloom year-round up in Heaven.

    Another hydrangea - this one in a pretty shade of pink.  The bush is in a pot on my patio and it has stayed bright and beautiful for several weeks!  Hydrangeas are one of my very favorite flowers - and in all colors, although I think lavender might be my favorite.

    

     This is a flower in my backyard that came up on a vine that appeared out of nowhere.  I imagine a bird or some other animal planted or dropped seeds for the plant and God gave me the free gift of an exotic passion flower.  This flower is not a "lily," but the following Bible verse pertains to all the flowers of the field.

     "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these," Matthew 6:28-29.

    I'll end our visit to flower fields with this picture of tulips and a few other blooms that graced the garden of the Governor's Palace in Williamsburg this spring.  The sunshine was full-out that day and you can almost feel it's warmth in the bright green leaves surrounding the flowers.

   "O LORD, how manifold are Your works!  In wisdom You have made them all.  The earth is full of Your possessions," Psalm 104:24.

Morning Tea

     Each morning, I enjoy two cups of hot tea to go along with my whole grain cereal and blueberries.  It's a breakfast that's healthy and filling - and tasty too.  While I was sipping on my hot tea this morning, I was thanking God for blessing me with this abundance of good food and I began thinking of the many people who were involved in getting this food to my table - especially the tea.

    As I enjoyed the smooth, rich taste of the Darjeeling tea in my cup, I imagine a woman walking along the rows of Camellia sinensis bushes, grown on steep hillsides of the Eastern Himalayas in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal India.  I've seen pictures such as the one below (from Wikipedia) of women working on the tea plantations there.

    I picture this woman plucking the top two leaves and a bud from each bush and placing them in her basket.  The woman is most likely a Gorkha Indian and a Hindu (70% of the people there are Hindu, 27% are Muslim, with less than 1% claiming Christianity).

    Hand-picking tea leaves is far superior to machine picking.  Each tea picker's careful selection of leaves adds a personal touch to the final product.  And so, I thought about the young woman who  plucked the leaves that made up my lovely cup of Darjeeling tea.

    I wonder, what are the needs of this woman?  What about her family life and her dreams of the future?  Part of her work and the leaves she touched traveled many thousands of miles to America, ending up adding flavor and enjoyment to my cup of Darjeeling tea.  What an amazing journey for those tiny little leaves that grew on the hillside of the Himalayas, basking in the sunshine and rain of that faraway place.  

    I prayed for this woman - living a life far different than my own in a place far different than my home -- and yet, as women, not so very different.  I prayed for her needs and for God to bless her.  You see, God knows who this mystery woman is, and He loves her.  He knows every beat of her heart and, I believe, He is pleased that someone is praying for her.

    In fact, I have added her to my prayer list and I hope someday in Heaven that I might meet her, because I'm praying for her salvation too.  I pray that the Holy Spirit will work a miracle in her heart and show her the way to eternal redemption through Jesus Christ.  God is able and I'm trusting Him to take these prayers and work a work that would blow my mind!!

"Look among the nations and watch - be utterly astounded!  For I will work a work in your days which you would not believe, though it were told you," Habakkuk 1:5.

"Many, O LORD, my God, are Your wonderful works which You have done; and Your thoughts toward us cannot be recounted to You in order; if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered," Psalm 40:5.

"This was the LORD's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes," Psalm 118:23.

 

Theo of Golden

 

    This is one of those books that has depth and message, along with a good story about people and lives.  Theo is a fascinating character - in a quiet way.  It's a bit unusual to have an 80+ man as the main character of a book, but it works well in this novel and I'm grateful for the inspiration in Theo's life.

    A dear friend of mine Greta very highly recommended the book to me and even said she bought two copies - one to share and one to keep for herself.  That is high praise for a book!

    The book is thick and it's not a mystery or thriller or romance or spy novel - or any of my normal "reads," but I'm always game for something different and I dove into the book.  I was not disappointed!  It's a delightful book   It inspires, entertains, pulls at the heart-strings - and so much more.  I gave the book the full five-stars and felt it needed more.  

    If you like to read and you care about people; if you are interested in learning about people's lives and have a desire to encourage them along -- this book will appeal to you too.

    I've included an excerpt below, but it will reveal a bit about the end which you will probably figure out as you go along anyway, but I just want to warn that it's a bit of a spoiler so you might want to stop here.  If you decide to read Theo of Golden, I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did!

An excerpt from the book describes a bit about the kind of man Theo was.  The words are spoken by Father Lundy as a eulogy:

       "In Theo's honor, and in keeping with the hope that expressed itself so radiantly in his life, I read these words of promise from Another, a far greater One who lived obscurely among His neighbors long ago, an Artist Himself, the One who, for Theo, defined life and love and goodness.  The One who alone makes us good and wise and happy."

       After the priest read from the gospels of Matthew and John, he prayed, "...And if it is true that begging is our only wisdom, then we beg, dear Lord, that this man's presence in our lives will not have been in vain but instead that we will perpetuate the obedient faith, the cheerful hope, and the generous love that he made so beautifully visible while he was here among us.  Might the light of his countenance, how he loved, and who he loved, inspire us to follow him, even as he followed the Christ in whose name we pray.  Amen."