daffodils, dates, and times

by admin | Oct 27, 2023 | Faith, Purpose

We were planting daffodils this afternoon, my kids and I were.

A mere fifteen years after I first intended.

 We also found out while we were out that the little girl that lived across the street has now given birth to her first baby.  Life is wild and Mr. Time sure flies like that.  

But here I was, finally implementing and planting some not so big dreams that were also too big, apparently, to accomplish. It seems to be the theme of my life sometimes.  

I may be quick to notice a need, a willing volunteer, wanting to be a conduit for goodness. But sometimes I can be very very slow on the implementation.  

I could blame it on many many things.  

My personality, my faults, but maybe not my laziness. Perhaps the way that my willingness to say yes also sometimes means that I say yes to too many things. 

Though the kids have curbed that propensity, demonstrating and showing me both new limits and new heights, they have also joined the wrestling match for my time and attention.   They prove formidable foes, and much stronger than their tiny size would bely. I joke, mostly, for it is my extreme pleasure, even if not every aspect of it is a delight.  Most of it is. 

Certainly, all of the things that I dream and commit to, must wrestle it out. I guess that when they do, the stronger ones usually win.  

Which doesn’t always mean the flowers. 

Dreams are persistent though, and keep showing up whether we like it or not.  

When I realized how much I loved those flowers,  I was walking our new dog around the block and couldn’t  help but smile every time that I saw them in a neighbor’s yard. I’d pass by and say to myself “come October, I’ll be planting those bulbs.”  I too wanted to be greeted by such sunshine in my own front yard.  

Well, years passed. Many years.  October was apparently a busy month for me, long before those kids even came, and I never once got around to planting them. 

Just a few years ago, a neighbor gifted some mini daffodils to me- carrying them right to my door- and I couldn’t have been happier.   I felt seen and valued in my tiny daffodil dreams. When they sprung up beautifully the next year,  they were a reminder of what waited for me.  I was capable of growing something so beautiful.  I must do this again, and more. I must dream, and plant more, and even bigger. 

Now, something was different this year.   

I’ve had this great new helper. He’s not “new”, he’s been around for six and half glorious years. He just happens to be in a different place, as we all are, and he was with me at the grocery store when I saw the daffodils. I casually mentioned that I “always want to plant those.”  As I said it I was completely ready to almost immediately dismiss the thought, again. 

My little helper was on it though.  “Let’s get them!” he said enthusiastically.   In a moment of doubt and hesitation, I paused.  Then I quickly realized that waiting was certainly NOT in my favor.  I remembered his tiny but mighty presence and how that changed everything. He’s my “doer’, my engineer, my fix it, built it, up for the task and finish the job kinda guy.  

When I remembered that, the bulbs practically jumped into my cart.  Now, I miraculously remembered them today, while we were outside with no plans, and all afternoon.

When I mentioned it to him, he was on it, again.  He’s strong and willing, my little six year old helper   Pretty capable too. Definitely capable of helping me show up.  

Man, my kids teach me a lot. Like having the courage to start, even when I haven’t quite done it yet. Even if at times it felt like they tried to do the opposite of helping, just by being regular kids with regular unending needs.  

But when it’s time, it’s time, and God has a way of bringing just the right coaches that you need, just when you need them. Even if it is the same ones who might have appeared to hold you back before. (Spoiler, it never was them.)

This time was different.  With him by my side, we could do it.  Once begun can be half done, and there was not much we had to do to (finally) get started.  He brought all the momentum, grabbed the bag of bulbs, and I procured  the shovel.  Before we knew it, we really had the bulbs rolling.   (Ha ha!)

The thing that struck me the most was how deep we had to plant them. As we started to dig, I knew that it was as good as done.  With the first push of the shovel into the hard cold dirt meant that we had a chance. Starting would mean they might grow.  

But digging is hard work.  My son said as much.  He was shocked at how difficult that part was, and how long that it took.   Would we be able to plant them deep enough or well enough? 

A quick check of the directions had confirmed that the depth must be enough for its eventual height.  These guys should be given some space and not be too overcrowded.    

But the depth mattered most.  Too shallow, and they wouldn’t survive.

As I explained this out loud, I thought that it feels a lot like these last fifteen years or more, too.  For years things have been dug and planted deep into my heart.  The ground has been cultivated and made soft and dug deeper.  It must be this way, it must take time.  

Because when it’s time to bloom, you need that equal foundation.  Blossoming is never day one.  It’s more like year, fifteen, twenty, thirty.    

Like I said.  It only took me fifteen years to get these daffodils going.  Such it is, with so many dreams that I’ve carried and still carry in my heart. 

The delays never seem to squash the hope of possibility.  It’s only when I start to count the years that I begin to really doubt and worry.  When I think about myself, and my failures, instead of the possibility of the dreams, is when they start to loose a little glimmer in my heart.

It can’t be too late for me.   

It can’t be too late for you, either.

I am, I think, a late bloomer.   

I am, because I want to be.   A bloomer, eventually. A bloomer after all. 

I have to be, because I am, now.  

Because I refuse to think that my best days are behind me.  

How can they be, when I still see so much good.    

Not ever, if I care to notice the possibility. 

I’ll check in with you later.  

Next Spring, maybe, or whenever it happens to be time for blooms.  I’ll make sure to remind you of what else is possible, now that you see the next, possible, beauty, growing.  

Yes. It’s time for more beauty.  

Right in your own front yard.

Hope, always

by admin | Oct 26, 2023 | Faith, Purpose

“If hope is real, then I want to see it.  If hope is thing, then I want to deal it. If hope is a seed, then I want to plant it.  If hope is a way, I want to walk it. If Hope is person, I want to embrace him.

Then I pause to think.  Perhaps because I think about it, maybe I already have?  Maybe I can, even, more.

Always.
Always, more, Hope. Because that’s where He always leads.”

Always, Hope.

I wanted to become a journalist since I was young.  (That and a teacher previously, as many young girls start to dream after  watching the kind souls that teach them. ) But writing, “breaking news”, and sharing stories worth noting was my greatest ‘desire’, apart part from loving (and therefore, serving) God.  

That desire was laid upon the altar- unexpectedly, voluntarily, as a byproduct of surrendered prayers- and it went up in flames.   

Or did it?

After a memorable visit to a friend’s Wednesday night (super cool and real, by the way) youth group the next city over, I found myself suddenly knowing that I needed to go to Bible college.   This was about five weeks before upcoming high school graduation, and a well after my decisions to college, a scholarship and awaiting opportunity and connection. 

All I could attribute it to was the time we all spent on the floor of the chapel, praying.  I was face down, in my hand made bell bottoms, a hippie redux of sorts, only the 90’s version.  I  was trying to put out if my mind the young man I was interested in, a fellow “hippie” I had met on a missions trip a few of years prior.   I prayed with all of my might, as much as I could at the time, laying both myself and my dreams on the altar.  

Well God in His wisdom, took me up on the offer.  I wanted to go to Bible college, almost completely out of the blue, and all I could blame it on was that surrendered  prayer.   

It’s interesting looking back , because I knew that I could serve God in journalism.  It did t have to be either or.  But I didn’t know then what or how it would need to look.   I didn’t  know that what I would need to do would look the exact opposite,  yet somehow still hit the mark.  The heart of what I dreamed, the heart of what I wanted, without  all of the extra stuff.  

I skipped out on my communications degree and joined the ranks of servanthood at a college full of training ministers and hopeful pastors and oversea missionaries and loving children’s workers.   

I fit not one mold in particular, but looking back, have perhaps dabbled  in a bit of all of them.  

Yes, the “dream” of becoming a journalist smoldered on the altar for a year as I took time to so end “a year in the Son”, as they called it.   

At a chapel where the speaker spoke on the life of Mary and her willingness to do and be what God said, I stayed behind and prayed.  I remember exact row of chairs that I sat in almost if not practically.  End of the aisle, more towards the back, but not completely. On the left side.  I sat, staring down at my long- skirted lap, my open hands, a pile of books and Bible probably on my lap.   I remember being overcome, and with upturned hands  echoing Mary’s prayer.  

“Be it unto me according to Your Word.” 

I didn’t even know what His Word was, exactly, at the time.  I probably still don’t in so many ways.   But I said it, and I meant it as best that I could.   

A few weeks later, I unsurprisingly had a long, slow and yet sudden change of heart.   I wouldn’t return to the scholarship that waited for me.  I wouldn’t pursue a degree in journalism.   My friends cheered. I had no idea what I might become, but I was going to follow Him. I would stay, here at Bible college, and become whatever God wanted. 

What, I still don’t know exactly.  But, hopefully mostly His.  

Yes, I’m a wife, a mom, a writer.  A friend, daughter, sister, neighbor. I’m a bit of a coach and a volunteer, and can be found teaching in short bursts, too.  I am a pray-er.  A singer, though slight off key.  An encourager.  A child of God.  

Yes, I hope, I’m most of all, His.  Broken, chipped, blessedly, meandering even at times, but still His.  I’m a runner, though not always in the right direction.   I’m a rester, a lover, occasionally a fighter, and sometimes a wrestler.   

But the consistent thing is, yes, His.  

I decided a long long time ago that I would follow Jesus.  Even when I got a little lost or mixed up, He never forgot it, my broken promise. He never gave up.   Even when I didn’t know that to do or how to get where He was going, He never gave up on me.  And He never will.   

You, too. 

He doesn’t care where you’ve been or what you’ve done.  “What, now?” is as Jesus His question.  What next, He asks.  

“Together?” He questions, arm outstretched to grab yours.  

What did you always want to be? It’s not too late, not really. Not if you’re following the heart that was behind it. It might look different but it probably is still waiting for you to walk in it. It might fit now, “just right.”

I recently saw a post where a friend quoted me. “As long as there is breath, there is hope.”  I couldn’t remember saying it exactly, and I don’t know if I copied it or said it exactly like that.  

But I thought, “that’s it.” 

As long as there’s breath, there is hope.   And instead of telling terrible, breaking news stories, I have wanted my whole life to tell good ones.   Good ones, true ones, filled with Hope.  That are right and beautiful, even if they’re hard.  Collected on hard wooden floors, or in soft, unsure chairs of waiting. All gathered together in places of surrender.  

Those are the ones are worth telling.  Worth listening to, even if it messes up your plans.  And I want to be here to help tell them.  Yours, mine, all of ours, common threads, with uncommon Hope.

A journalist in the trenches, with one ear to heaven and one ear to the earth.   Bringing breaking news of encouragement, not ones t riddled with fear or discouragement.

Thank God I’m not  a journalist.  Not “theirs” anyway.   Because Hope doesn’t sell big or catch a flashy headline as much as fear might appear to.  But it’s ironic because isn’t Hope what we really crave? Isn’t good news what every soul needs.  It is. So it’s what I want to lead with.   

The truth is, if we’re really following Christ- either in the marketplace or out of it- that’s what we’ll lead with too. 

 

If hope is real, then I want to see it. 

If hope is thing, then I want to deal it 

If hope is a seed, I want to plant it  

If hope is a way, I want to walk it  

If Hope is person, I want to embrace him.

Then I pause to think. 

Perhaps because I think about it, maybe I already have? 

And maybe I can, even more, too. 

Always. 

Because that’s where He always leads.     

Hope, always.

Sure, I’ll be a Hope dealer. A journalist of sort. Different, but necessary. Because He is, our Hope in glory, of all that is good.   He lives, forever in, and invites us on  a journey of eternal hope, forever with Him.

That’s “breaking news.” The sort that’ll make you whole.