Dandelions, Thistles, and How Do You Grow Faith?

I bike to my new yard, a yellow child trailer bouncing along behind me. This is it! The new home. 

Earlier, a friend, in black “blinged” flip flops, and I, in brown bejeweled sandals, walk in measured paces across the knee-high grass. Counting feet and meandering mildly-haphazardly through the dandelions, we guess at the dimensions for a privacy fence. I dream gardens and landscaping, and skip excitedly. 

“I could put the garden there, and plant ferns here.” We sidestep thistles, and scratch itchy ankles. 

“Mom, I think I’ll wait in the van,” my friend’s daughter finally surmises, as my friend graciously walks and plans with me. We plan summer outings and moving days, and then she drives away, sharing my joy and excitement.

At the local hardware super store, I amble the aisles and ponder two by fours. 

I keep being drawn now to the yellow and green trim house, eager to move in, and ecstatic with our Abba for blessing us with this lovely home. My daughter and I peer over internet real estate photos of our new home, wondering about furniture placement and divvying up bedrooms.

Boxes accumulate in our current home, moving plans are made, and the closing dates loom three weeks away. Ensconced in our boxes and memories, we say farewell to our neighbors of fourteen years, finish up school, and marvel at our God who provided this new home for us. 

Thank you, friends, for praying for our current home to sell and for a new home for us. It’s been a ten month journey, and a great time to practice waiting and trusting. 

Thank you, Abba, for extravagant answers to prayer. I stand awed, humbled, and convicted that I had doubted. 

In tiny pencil on narrow margins, I had etched my worries last week.  In lead script beside ancient Old Testament type, I had joined the prophet Daniel’s prayers with my own words. Beside his lofty prayers for wisdom in discerning an impulsive king’s dreams, I scratched in my own request. Daniel urged his friends to “plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery” and I scrawled out, “A house, Lord? 5/18/12.” 

On the next page, when the young biblical prophet Daniel is given the dream’s meaning and bursts out into jubilant praise to the God who “reveals deep and hidden things” and who had “made known what was asked of him,” my pencil scratched again. “A house, Lord? 5/18/12.” 

Days later, our realtor called. Amid dancing and squeals, and hurried phone calls to family members, I opened my Bible again, and added a new date to those etched pencil-marked margins. 

“Yes! 5/22/12.” Thankful praise penciled into two pages, and across two spots in my heart, reminding me that yes, his heart is for us, and yes, he hears and answers prayers – over and abundantly. 

Oh me of little faith. I’m taught again, and so I return, by foot, by bike or by car to the jumbled grassy lawn. Walking through the tangled dandelions and thistles, I grin, amazed at my Abba, and humbly thankful.