Beauty for a season

We could put it off no longer. The neighbors were surely forming Protest Marches. We had to rake. While not even one tenth of the leaves destined to fall have as yet fallen, our yard had more than a 5:00 shadow already. While we looked wistfully on the clean cut lawns of the neighbors with only two trees, and moaned how life wasn't fair, the fact remained that we were a blight on the neighborhood.

As I began raking, I was doubly dismayed to see that beneathe the layer of leaves there was no grass. And as I began raking the "garden" by the house, I  realized that flowers and whole ground cover shrubs were being pulled from the dirt in last gasps of tenuous life. All the green things in my yard were dead or dying.

It is not entirely my fault. The summer was brutal- hotter and dryer than usual. And I was older, thus hotter and dryer myself. I just could not keep up with the increased needs of a sweaty, thirsty yard. And here in the tines of my rake was the destruction.  What broke my heart the most were the mums. They were "leggy" which I knew could have been avoided had I half an ounce of green thumbship, which I don't.  Their tired roots gave way as I tried to rake gently between them to get at the unsightly fallen leaves.

I raked into the pile living mums, bright yellow against the dismal dead underbrush and leaves. Pausing, I gathered the flowers. I brought them in and trimmed away the brown leaves and cut their stems that were crushed and damaged. I arranged them artfully in a pretty vase and gave them the first good drink of water they had had in months.  They sparkled happily on my countertop waving pretty petals in gratitude.

Sometimes what seems dead is alive. What looks ready to toss to the trash beckons to be noticed. Care, while late, is sometimes perhaps not too late. Sometimes beauty lurks in the midst of decay. And sometimes it really is only meant to be for a season.

When Hannah of the Old Testament, remained childless year after year, her despair grew. She poured out her heart to the Lord begging him to open her womb, and year after year, remained barren. Then the Bible records an anguished bout of prayer that reveals a tormented, but still faithful woman. Ultimately, God sent her a child, Samuel, a bouquet of delight to a soul languishing in a life of dead leaves. Instead of growling, "Well it is about time!", Hannah praises God and raises Samuel to be sanctified in the Lord's service once he is weaned. She joyfully raises her baby only to give him right back to God a few years later. She lifts a bouquet out of dismay, and then offers it back to a dying world.  What a woman of faith, I thought, to cling so lightly to what she longed for so deeply.

"Smile with us!" calls my vase of mums, waving radiant petals, "Rejoice in the color God has sent you for today!".

i Samuel 1: 12-18, 24-28
 ¹² As she kept on praying to the LORD, Eli observed her mouth. ¹³ Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk ¹⁴ and said to her, “How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine.”
 ¹⁵ “Not so, my lord,” Hannah replied, “I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the LORD. ¹⁶ Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.”
 ¹⁷ Eli answered, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.”
 ¹⁸ She said, “May your servant find favor in your eyes.” Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast.

 ²⁴ After he was weaned, she took the boy with her, young as he was, along with a three-year-old bull,^[e] an ephah^[f] of flour and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the LORD at Shiloh. ²⁵ When the bull had been sacrificed, they brought the boy to Eli, ²⁶ and she said to him, “Pardon me, my lord. As surely as you live, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the LORD. ²⁷ I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. ²⁸ So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD.” And he worshiped the LORD there.