I take my bowl of mixed cereals (a concoction of about five varieties) and set it on the deck railing. The sun has been up for an hour and the deck is already warm and full of promise for afternoon naps. There are townhouses on three sides of me (I have a corner unit) and our back decks overlook each other. It is summer and the decks are lined with petunias of all colours…it is quite a show.
I am in my night attire, covered from head to toe with a dressing gown, and I stand and eat my cereal with relish. I often wonder why people are ashamed of being seen outside in dressing gowns, and not in shorts and halters. The only naked part of me is my toes…I do so love to walk barefoot and the deck surface is cool. Also, I painted the deck floor last week (missed a few spots I see), but it just calls to me to walk across its clean surface.
Over a week ago I was at a local grocery store and their gardening section was being partly dismantled…it was nearly the end of the planting season and the last of the pansies and petunias were being given away and would be trashed soon. I couldn’t bear that. Plants are living things and my heart went out to some pansies that were hanging over their boxes. Poor things they looked so sad. So I loaded up about three boxes of them, hollered a thank you to the lady watering some of the better maintained stuff and marched my sick pansies to the car. I was on a mission. The world I cannot save but maybe with tender, loving care these few plants would survive.
So they were placed gently in a tall tub I had emptied some time earlier. Like exhausted travelers, their little legs trailed over the sides and their blue faces held no sparkle at all. I had never seen “trailing pansies” before but was entranced by them and next morning they looked up expectantly when I opened the deck door. They were exquisite.
Those throw away pansies are giving me so much pleasure. There is something so rewarding in helping even pansies to survive. But pansies are only such a small bit of the living things in this world for God gave us the task of helping each other as well as looking after his world.
My new neighbour popped in yesterday. She’s a bit lonely, I could tell and she chatted and I listened. My across the street neighbour is having basement water problems and I listened to her today too. No, I cannot fix the problem but even a listening ear eases a heavy burden.
Sometimes the opportunity to share another’s concerns is a trust God is giving you…like my pansies, a refreshing drink, a tender touch and hope for tomorrow can work miracles.
