The Shopkeeper's Secret (and It Impacts You)

"'I'm here for my rose,' she'd say."

Mary stopped speaking and pushed her red hair behind an ear.

"Each week she came in, this sweet retired school teacher. ...There were photos everywhere in her home of her kids. School kids would come back year after year to visit her, even when they were married and grown. They'd send her Christmas cards with family photos, and Char would add the photos to her walls. Her walls were covered with photographs. She loved her students and loved being part of their lives as they grew up."

Mary stopped to run a hand across her face. Hot chlorine-scented steam surrounded us at the public pool. We paused to glance at the swimmers in nearby lessons, and then returned to talking.

"When her husband was dying, he set it up: one peach rose for her. Every Tuesday Char would come to the flower shop where I worked."

Photo Credit: Flickr user Adam Jones, Creative Commons cc license

'I'm here for my rose!' she said.

"She and her husband were Christians and had married later when they were in their forties or so," Mary continued.

"He grew roses, and they had met over that. At his home he grew bush after bush of peach roses. They were his favorite colored rose. He always said he didn't know why he would grow any other flower."

Mary chuckled and shrugged.

"And that's what he arranged for her to receive every week after he died: one peach rose. She came in every week, and everyone in our shop knew her."

Mary paused to check on her grand-children in the pool, and I breathed it in, this act of love throughout the ages.

What a great way to show love, I thought, wriggling my bare toes on the wet tiled floor. Cheeks red with heat, I pushed shirt sleeves higher up my arms and leaned back in my bench. What did a gesture like that cost, I wondered.

And I loved the foresight of this flower-loving, wife-loving man to set up a fund that weekly supplied his bride with the reminder that he loved her, that he had thought of her, long after he had gone.

It reminds me of Easter, actually. This costly act of love that ripples back throughout the years, weekly reminders of our God's love for us. Jesus endured a Roman torture death to show the world how much he loved it. Our humanity-loving Creator chose to die so that he could give us life.

His love takes my breath away.

And he invites us into a relationship with him, boldly saying, "I have come that they may have Life and have it abundantly."

Too often, I think, I grow complacent, lazy, and forget to be grateful. I forget to stand up smiling, eager, thankful.

So I stand up today, and speak it out in grateful love. "I'm here for this New Life.  ...He already purchased it for me."


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When Spring and Life Falter

It's not that they lied.

It's just that we see the calendar's blatant announcement of spring and then step curiously outside to shiver in a chilly thirteen degrees. Snow flurries fly diagonally to the right, falling softly for hours. Crystal diadems stack an inch high. An hour later, the snow stops. Blue skies and sunshine light up melting snow. Crystalline diadems dissipate.

At the kitchen table, my daughter and I solve second degree algebra equations, and turn pages in her physical science textbook. My preschooler wriggles excitedly on his stool at the computer desk, watching his character scroll through a two-dimensional world. And his world looks flat from here, but he knows the whole game. Dodging dangers, jumping cliffs, and traipsing into caverns, he locates the treasures. And when dangers or troubles overtake him, he confidently starts again.

We saw him this afternoon, the chubby fleece rabbit, hiding under the tall firs. He'd been scarce all winter. A robin flitted onto a bone bare branch today too, forerunner of a silent spring.

And Midwestern Americans everywhere peer optimistically out windows and hover at open doorways, light jackets in hand, wondering. New life lingers, latent below the surface, and winter melts away.

And your words, they come to my mind... "Lord, where else would we go? You hold the words of life!" And the world teems with it.

Can't see the spring, the new life, in your world? Are you dodging dangers, jumping cliffs, and stumbling through dark caverns in a two-dimensional world? Our God knows this life game and confidently navigates it for us. "Lord, where else would we go? You hold the words of life."

Hi friend. What have you been reading, learning, or thinking about this week?

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*Photo Credit: Evan Long, Creative Commons, cc license

Um, There's Someone Behind You...

Photo Credit to Thierry Gregorius 

Rigor mortis drapes fingertips long on our Christmas tree still sparkling beside me. Fragrant pine needles wafted long after December 25th so I didn't have the heart to throw it away then. Now the scent has passed, though, and it's time. 

Alongside strong French coffee this week, I've been following a tale of death and starting over. In familiar biblical accounts in Luke, we see Jesus dying on the cross, a dark cave tomb blasted with light and an empty slab where a body should be.

"Why do you look for the living among the dead?" angels ask with a smile to wondering women.

And along a winding country road, seven miles outside the city, Jesus appears to two men and starts a conversation.

It always begins with a conversation. The Godhead shows up humbly, unobtrusively. To the men, he appeared beside them as they walked, and asked them what they were talking about.

Beside you, too, today, as you shuffle papers in the office, or fold laundry and orchestrate a home, and while you tap keys on your computer...

He walks quietly up beside us, wonders what we are thinking, listens, and then begins to talk.

And the old, the dead, the browning stiffness is gone, replaced with a burning sense of wonder.

"Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him..."

"Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?" they raved. And suddenly, any road weariness is lifted and they leave their supper behind, drop all thoughts of sleep, and retrace their seven mile hike back into town.

This God, he's always making things new, bringing life to the dead, and desiring to reveal himself to us in a way that makes our hearts burn within us. God, help me see you walking here beside me, eager to open my mind to understand your word.

Between the Rains

"We'll have to buy our wood before the rain comes," he mused, carrying in bags and unpacking their tools. Wood saws, buckets, and gangly narrow planks--reverberating at each step-- stacked into the garage or across the hot asphalt driveway. In-laws from the north drove down this week, kindly tackling work projects with us.

Humid air hung heavy and deliciously hot after an April winter. We piled into multiple cars, and snaked the aisles of a home repair store, our list and pencil calculations in hand. We were building shelves, for the garage and for downstairs. In the downstairs family room, years of homeschooling books and textbooks perched in precarious piles, waiting for the three long bookshelves to be completed.

Over coffee and decaf Earl Grey, we worked, sawing, gluing, nailing, and drilling. When the rains came, we inched into dry rooms and continued. Dads, a grandpa, and sons worked. Moms, a grandma, and daughters worked. We younger ones watched carefully as we followed orders, taking mental notes, seeing selfless grace and a hard work ethic. The shelves grew taller. And when the rain came again, we sank into couches for a generational movie night, dusty, sweaty, and proud.

---

Friday and Saturday, I helped at a garage sale fundraiser for our France senior high missions trip. In between the rains, we stacked shoes and clothing, and arrayed toys and lawn chairs. Rain glittered on sparkly red glitter shoes, and melted cardboard boxes. Under a damp white awning, we talked with strangers, neighbors, and church friends. Teens, siblings, and family members served side by side, next to slippery rain tarps and dripping eaves. In between the rains, we dried items, sold items, and then loaded four trucks of items to give away.

---

This morning, I ground espresso coffee beans, and washed up the last dishes before my parents arrived. Rain fell heavy on the deck and yard. Soon two flood pools reflected back the sky in streets and yards.

Knocking and entering, my parents slid off shoes, passed out hugs, and pulled out seeds. "I brought the strawberry plants around to the back," Mom said, bending low for a four year old's conversation. My dad's shovels, rakes, and buckets lay ready on the front steps.

We drank black coffee, catching up on news, snacking on peanut butter-topped celery and oreos. Sunshine crossed the yard, splashing on to the deck and railings. We drained our coffee, grabbed hoes, and set out across raindrop-tipped dandelions. My mom planted strawberries, transplanted white shasta daisies, and weeded. My dad and I gathered shredded bark, rolled back faulty weed liners, and reinforced weed barriers in the landscape beds.

Hours passed quickly, and black dirt clung to our faces, knees, and hands. At one-thirty, under chilled grey storm-clouds that darkened the sky, we raced raindrops to finish. In seconds, we lost and, grabbing tools, ran laughing to the door. Later, we peered through wet windows to see beautiful garden beds and new life emerging.

---

Emerging now after our last rainfall, I snap photos and crow excitedly over each new life. Tulips shine rain drop jewels next to swelling alium buds, pregnant with life. Radish buds crowd in lines, elbowing each other. Pea pods emerge tiny and curled, barely noticeable in the cracked earth. Mint plants weather fierce rains, slipping up to the light. And the ones that get me most? Vivid green raspberry leaves burst from dead twigs chomped to the ground by hungry deer and gophers last fall. The green life amazes and thrills me, surging unexpected from dormant sticks and hidden underground roots.

---

Rains so often seem to halt activity, yet it is after the rains that I see the most vivid life.

Between the rains, life grows. From the rain, life grows.


Linking with Ann at A Holy Experience.

Easter Thunders at Skeleton Head

Thunder breaks without warning at 4 am last night, like two semi trucks crashing and tumbling on the street outside our window. Startled awake, I lie in the dark and revel in the milder rumbles and lightning that follow.

I wonder if this is what the earthquake sounded like to the startled Romans and Jews that dark afternoon when Jesus died. Already, the solar eclipse or miraculous dark that flooded in at noon was extraordinary. But the earthquake that shook the Skeleton Head mound where wooden crosses lined up, tore the temple's curtain in two, and helped gravely graveyard tombs grind open, releasing the newly-alive, must have been horrifying and memorable. Did the earthquake sound like loud thunder overhead? Like a high impact crash of two semi trucks outside?

The first of Minnesota spring storms starts at dawn, before the light. Water sinks into deeply entombed snowbanks. Rain falls heavy, washing away a winter's salt and sand, soaking into a cold earth. The ground thaws slowly, rain puddling into mini ponds. Mountains of snow whittle by the hour, and the brown remnants of last summer's glory dissolve away.

An hour later, my family stirs and we meet to stare out rain-speckled windows. In the brightening day, water glistens everywhere. My daughter pads across the damp deck to peer closer.

"Mom, I see green grass!"

Later today, the sun climbs high, and Minnesotans everywhere embrace the vibrant fifty degree weather, smiling at strangers, walking dogs, and watching the snow melt. And within the soggy dead undergrowth, life pulses, building momentum for its entrance.

Happy Easter, friend.

My four year old and I pore over his picture Bible today, telling the historical account, tracing the timeline of events, and wondering at the love Jesus has to endure that pain for us. And within the soggy dead undergrowth, life pulses, building momentum for its entrance.

Photo credit to Microsoft.