Leaning

The skies are gray. We've had rain and more rain. It's hard to go outdoors without stepping in mud. Things aren't going like we would like them to go. We need to rebuild the chimney at Katrina's. We have to have a special permit that normally takes hours in offices and money to pay for it just to rebuild the chimney. We buy pizza in a restaurant inside a large store. We can't eat quite all of it so we buy a box to take it out. At the cash register of the store, the cashier is ready to make an issue of us having the pizza box that costs twenty eight cents that we would have had to climb over a counter in able to steal it when we're trying to pay for over $100 worth of groceries. Fortunately we found the receipt. Our children are tired of school and it shows. The list could go on . . . and I know you have a list, too.

But we're doing our best to lean. I'm trying to take lessons from the wild flowers that could consider that the weeds and grass are literally choking the life out of them, definitely increasing their stress, but still they bloom.


Here's the beginnings of wild flowers that are blossoming. The storks are finding sticks amidst the mud to build their nests.

Here are some blossoms on an apricot tree blooming in the damp weather as well.

I'm trying to take lessons from the research made into businesses that came out stronger when the times got tough. According to author Jim Collins, they faced the facts, even negative ones but still believed that they could win. He gave the example of Stockdale, a prisoner of war, who went to all lengths to maintain communication and courage when he was captured. Stockdale said that the prisoners who didn't make it out were the ones who counted on being out by Christmas or by Easter. The prisoners who returned stronger and better were those who faced the facts that they didn't know when they would be released but believed that they would win.

Just the other afternoon I finally had the chance to go visit our neighbor who lost her husband not long ago. I had promised her at the time of her husband's death that I would come back when the hullabaloo had settled down and it was all quiet and lonely. She gave me a cup of tea and khava--that's a sweet candy with peanuts in it, made from the leftovers after the oil is pressed out of sunflower seeds. She's a nurse on the surgical floor in the local hospital. We did find something to talk about. Among other things our outside cat migrated to her house when we spent six months in America. Now that we are back, he splits his time between the two places and we share the cat!! She invited me to come back . . . it seems to be the beginning of a special friendship.

So we are pressing forward. God is fighting for us whether we see His working or feel good about what is going on around us. We want to lean on Him and bloom just like these beautiful bits of spring.