When You Need a Wildflower Crown

Hi Friends,

I'm reminding myself of this story this week as I seek to rejoice in God's love...

WILDFLOWER CROWNS

 

            They came in giggling.  All six of them with dirt smudges on their noses, grass stains on their knees.  Laughing and dancing and flopping on the floor in a bundle of bubbling sibling delight.

            “Don’t make a mess!”  I gripped the dishtowel in one hand and peered out the kitchen.  “No dirty shoes on the rug!”

            “Don’t worry,” Joelle called.  “We won’t.”

            “Did you clean up the basement for community group?”  I went back to drying the dishes.

            No one answered.

            “We’ve got a lot to do.”  

            Only another burst of giggles answered me.

            I put my fists on my hips and stomped around the corner.  “Hey, you --”  The words caught.

            My three-year-old skipped toward me, one  hand on her head.  “Look, Mommy, look what I’ve got.  I’m wondrous beauty!”  She pulled a crown of wildflowers from her hair.  “See?”

            I did see.  I saw them all, with flowers adorning every head, with crowns woven of daisies and dandelions and little purple wildflowers. They were beautiful.  Wondrous.

            “Jayden made me a crown.  Purple, your favorite color.”

            I bent over and squeezed her tight.  “You are a beautiful princess.”  I stood up.  “All of you.”

            “Not me!”  Jayden took the crown from his head and tossed it in the air.  “Boys aren’t princesses.”

            His sisters laughed.  “You make the best crowns, though.”

            He made a face and brushed sand from his hair and onto the rug.

            Bethany, the eldest, stood.  “Come on, let’s go make some more.  Let’s make one for Dad!”

            They jumped to their feet and raced out the door.  

            I shook my head and dried my hands on the towel as the door slammed shut and they scurried out onto the lawn.  I paused by the window, watching.  Legs scampered across the grass, hair glistened in the sun, small bodies flung themselves toward the patch of flowers growing near the driveway.  Sunshine and color and beauty and hope, adorned with wildflowers.

            A moment later, they were sitting in a tight circle.  Fingers flashed as they wove stems into head-sized circlets. Joelle placed a crown on Jayna, Bethany put one on Bria, while the littlest one worked hard to weave one that I knew would be for big brother, who would wear it even though he was NOT a princess.

            With crowns complete, they stood and began singing at the top of their lungs.  They danced in circles.  They ran; they leapt; they rolled on the grass.  And I was reminded of Zephaniah 3:17 (NIV), “The Lord your God is with you... He will take great delight in you; in his love he will...rejoice over you with singing.”  

            This is what rejoicing looked like.  This wildness, and joy, and dancing, and running, and tumbling.  And singing that was more like a shout than a song.  This was the kind of joy God offered me in Zephaniah 3:17.  

            He offered me a crown of wildflowers.

            I looked down at the dishtowel, still in my hands.  There was work to be done, dusting and laundry and dishes and food preparation for our group.  I had a to-do list a mile long.  How would I get it all done?

            Then, came a whisper in my soul: “Do not worry about tomorrow... (Mt. 6:34) ... I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these ... (Mt. 6:29)”

            Not even Solomon was dressed like one of these children, with their dirt-smudged noses, their grass-mussed knees, their flower-crowned heads.  God had adorned them with beauty, not because of their work but because of his love. They were princesses (well, except for Jayden), with crowns to match.  They were daughters of the King.

            And so was I.

            I dropped the dishtowel and called out the window.  “Hey, who’s going to make a crown for Mom?”

            Then, I danced toward the door.

Do You Have Poison Oak in Your Life?

Hi Friends,

The poison oak is starting to flourish here on our property and sure enough I caught it the other day. Ugh! Nasty rash on my neck, face, shoulder, and hands. And while I was trying not to scratch, I was reminded of the story below and how it's perhaps time to get rid of the poison oak not on the property paths but also in life.

Maybe God is saying the same to you?

The Choked Oak

 

It was tall.  It was green.  It was bushy.  But something wasn’t right.  

I crossed my arms and looked up at the fat, green oak tree.  Beside me, my husband sighed.  I shook my head.  “I don’t want to do it.  Do you want to do it?”

“I don’t want to do it.”

I stepped back.  “Someone’s got to do it.”

“It’s an ugly job.”

“That thing will be right outside the window once we build the cabin.  We can’t have it looking like that.”

“I know.  But still . . . ”  Bryan crossed his arms over his chest.

I put my hand on my hips.

            For a moment, we both stared at the oak and didn’t say a word.  Shiny green and red leaves poked from all parts of the tree.  But they weren’t oak leaves.  Thick vines twisted around the trunk and branches.  Those didn’t belong to the oak either. 

            I shivered.

            The green wasn’t the green of a healthy oak.  Instead it was a sign of poison.  A huge batch of poison oak had grown up into the tree and twined around every branch.  The tree was thick with it.  Lush and green, but with nasty poison.

            Bryan tugged on his sleeves.  “Okay, I’ll do it then.  But get the bleach ready for the laundry.”

            Four hours later, the laundry was in, Bryan was taking a cool shower, and the tree was clear.  I tromped up the hill and looked at it.  It wasn’t lush anymore.  And it wasn’t green.  Scraggly branches with a few sad leaves spread from the trunk and reached toward the sky.  

            “Ugh, it looks awful,” I murmured.  

            As I looked at the now-bare soil beneath it, I noticed there were no acorns scattered on the ground, and no little baby oaks growing around it. 

            Then it struck me.  That big, strong oak was stifled by that little vine.  The oak was bigger, taller, thicker, and more established.  And yet, that small, thin, poisonous weed had nearly choked the life from it.  

            As I stood and gazed at the tree, I was reminded of Jesus’ parable from Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8.  In that story, seed fell on four different types of soil.  In the third, the seed sprouted among thorns and the life was choked out the plants, just as the poison oak had choked the oak tree.  Jesus likened the thorns to the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth, and desires for other things.

            If something as small as poison oak could choke the life from a big, strong oak, how much more vulnerable was I to worry and wrong desires?  After all, there are so many things in life to worry about – finances, schooling, job concerns, health, family crises.  It’s easy to allow those to twine around my mind and shove poisonous leaves through my branches until there are acorns of God’s word dropping into my daily life.  No little oaks springing up around me.  I had to ask if I was I producing any kind of crop in God’s Kingdom.  Was it growing stronger through me, or was I just barely getting by?  

            As I asked those questions, I realized that I had some poison oak in my life – worries that kept me from focusing on God, goals I was pursuing that were good but weren’t God’s plan, things that were distracting me from fully living the life God had for me.  And just like we did for the oak tree, I had to cut off the poison oak at its base and peel away all the vines from the branches of my life. 

Over the past few years, we’ve kept the poison oak away from that oak tree, and now the tree is full, healthy, and green with leaves all its own.  In time, it recovered from the stranglehold of the poison oak.  It became the beautiful tree God meant it to be.

And I know that if I, too, keep the thorns away, I can be full of the greenness of true life.  I can be all God intends me to be.  I can be a tall, strong oak in the Kingdom of God.