Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Smell the Flowers



Mother is yelling at me from the other room...

"My clock is slowing down. I can’t tell the time!!”

I don't understand what's wrong.  I just changed the batteries.

Mother lives in a world that is slowing down.  Mine seems to be speeding up.  She walks slower.  Eats slower.  Talks slower.  I can’t imagine how it must feel to go in slow motion while the world is flying by.

We were coming out of Walmart.  I was quickly pushing Mother towards the car.

“Look there’s a little flower.”

“Where?”

“Right there!!!!”  (She’s pointing.)

I stopped the wheelchair, locked the brakes, and reached down to slowly uproot the little yellow flower from its unlikely home and presented it to my Mother. Some unsuspecting little bird had dropped a seed into a tiny little crack in the pavement.  God gave the rain and the sun and this little creation had somehow survived.  That tiny little flower had been grown specifically for my Mother.

“Here is your little flower.”

“It smells so sweet. Would you like to smell it?”

“It does smell sweet.”  I laid it down in the car.  Mother immediately picked it up.  She held it all the way home.  Later, I found the flower in her desk drawer, wilted and dead.

The back of our house faces a common area that's filled with beautiful flowers.  After Mother is ready for the day and she’s had her favorite breakfast, she'll sit and admire the flowers.  She yells from the porch.

“Come out here and look at the beautiful flowers!”

“In a minute.” ( I have about 200 things to do..)

“Come out here and look at all the beautiful flowers!!!  Isn’t God good to give us so many flowers to enjoy?”

“Yes, Mother.  He is good all the time.” (Hardly hearing her...)

“Where are you????”

“I’m in my office...working.”

“What are you doing???”

“I’m working on my ministry.”

“Why don’t you come out here and look at the flowers?”

“I’ll be there in a second.....  I’m almost finished.”

“You’re missing the flowers growing!!!”

“You can’t SEE flowers growing, Mother!”

“You can if you sit still!!!!”

“I’ll be there in a second!"

Finally I'm finished.  When I walk out on to the porch, Mother is asleep.

“I should have stopped sooner.”  Why can't I slow ALL the clocks down...everywhere? 

Lately God has been teaching me to look for little flowers growing in cracks- to watch them grow.  Even though my life is moving at warp speed, I’m trying to slow down.  Because life is fleeting.  One of Mother’s friends in her Sunday school class recently went home to be with God.  Her earthly clock finally came to a stop.  Last Sunday, Mother asked her teacher, “Where are all our members?”

Her teacher said, “They’re home.”

Mother said, “I miss them.”

Her teacher said, “Me too.”

Our lives are like a vapor.  Scientists tell us that a vapor will disperse within seconds. James 4:14 says…What is life?  It is a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes....within seconds.  In view of eternity, we are on this earth for a mere "second".  What you do with those "seconds" is entirely up to you.  Right now, I'm going to go and sit on the porch with my mom...and watch the little flowers grow.....and say "I Love You" right out loud;)


3 comments:

  1. So amazing. Thank you for writing this blog.

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  2. I teared up reading this. It reminded me of a memory; When Monica and I were little we would go to mamashockley's house in the summer and stay for about a week. We would always take a walk after dinner around her nieghborhood. We would listen to the birds, try and catch lighting bugs, and always pick flowers. We would take the flowers home and put them in a mason jar on the table... She has always loved flowers. What a gift you and Mamashockley are to me.

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  3. This is a beautiful post. So touching. Thank you for sharing!

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