Monthly Archives: April 2012

It’s time to flower.

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For 63 years I lived in the Chicago metropolitan area and was accustomed to every possible convenience: endless shopping options, museums, convention centers, sports arenas, plentiful public transportation, theaters, and more. Life was fast-paced, if not sometimes over-full.

Then Nate and I relocated to a very small town in southwest Michigan, and a much simpler life came along with our move. He barely had time to adjust before he had to move again, but this time it was to a paradise unlike anything we’d known on earth. He had to leave me behind, though, and I’m still a resident of that tiny Midwestern town.

Small towns may not have the options of giant cities, but they do have their perks. Today I took advantage of one of them, pulling off the road in response to a sign inviting me to help myself to some blooming daffodils. An old-fashioned flower cart with cheery yellow wheels stood by itself, loaded with jonquils, daffodils, and hyacinth. The sign read, “SELF SERVE” for $1 a bunch. A slotted metal box directed my deposit, and I folded several dollars into the opening.

Buying gorgeous flowers on an honor system? Only in a small town.

Later a friend told me about the trusting woman behind the flower cart, a person who has similar carts in multiple locations throughout the area. She owns a flower farm out in the country and shares excess blooms with the public each year.

Looking through my camera I was struck by the beauty in the frame, not just the flowers themselves but the invitation to help myself, no questions asked.

During Holy Week we’re thinking about all Jesus had to go through to secure salvation for us, and the bottom line is much like the action of removing flowers from the cart: we have to reach out and take what’s being offered. I could drive past those flowers every day, admiring their beauty but never stopping to bring some home with me. If I don’t pull over, get out of the car, and make a personal choice, they’ll never be mine.

God extends his offer to everyone passing by and sincerely hopes each one of us will choose him. And though I was instructed to put dollar bills into the lock-box for my flowers, God asks nothing of us. Jesus already paid the bill, and the gift he extends to us cost him a sum we could never provide through our own effort.

Free to us, it cost Jesus everything.

And one last note. Although flower carts like the one I saw today might be found in small towns where buyers are faithful to the honor system, salvation is freely available all over the place: in giant cities, in rural areas, and everywhere in between.

“Let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.” (Revelation 22:17)

Giving Back

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This blog has always been a therapy for me, a place I eagerly look forward to going every day. It began as a bulletin board for family and friends when Nate was sick, then morphed into a place where I could work through the struggles of new widowhood. Readers were gracious and supportive then, and still are today.

Looking back over recent posts I see how they’ve become less and less about me and more and more about God. He’s become my shining star, a gleaming guide who is front and center in my life and on my blog. Writing about him will always be satisfying, and because of who he is, I’ll never run out of material.

Something impressive through the last couple of years is how extensively he has delivered a wealth of wisdom to me through you, dear reader. You’ve responded to my posts by sharing nuggets of gold, braving the comment boxes and the contact button in a way that has benefited me, and also other readers on this site.

Much of what you’ve written I’ve copied and saved in a cyberfile labeled, “Interesting Stuff,” and I can’t count the times I’ve returned to this compilation to hear you again. The following comment, left by a reader named Tina (10/27/09,“Tired”) seems to apply in a potent way to Easter week:

“I’m writing this with a hotel pen that says, ‘See the world. Stay with us.’ Seems a contradiction, since the world is a large place, and a hotel is not. When Jesus speaks, there’s no contradiction. ‘In my Father’s house there are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you.’ What I often forget is that He also stayed to prepare me for that place. Thank God for each morning’s new mercies… a cup of coffee, a warm hug, a baby’s drooling prattle, Scriptures that swell with meaning, then fit snugly into the day’s arsenal of resources. Another day. Another boatload of God’s tender compassions.” 

Easter week is the perfect time to zero in on the long list of resources that are mine (and yours) as a result of Jesus Christ’s willingness to take my sins into himself and suffer his Father’s incalculable wrath. For me.

He died, yet he lives. He departed, yet he stayed. He takes, yet he gives abundantly, an “arsenal of resources” with which to live our lives, every day.

And one of the valuable resources he’s given me, has been you.

“Because of God’s tender mercy, the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us,to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace.” (Luke 1:78-79)

Difficult Directions

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All of us drive absent-mindedly once in a while, especially if we’re moving along familiar roads. But when we’re in new territory, we have to depend on the signs to be accurate.

This week I was on an unfamiliar 5-lane street during rush hour in heavy traffic when I came upon something strange. At the edge of a strip-mall parking lot, a stop sign seemed out of place and was confusing drivers on the main thoroughfare. Were they supposed to stop? Some were. Others weren’t. And cars leaving the mall parking lot were entering traffic without so much as a pause.

Because of a Starbucks on the corner, I turned into the lot and found a parking spot, then walked back to the stop sign for a better look. It had been tampered with, swiveled 90 degrees, causing drivers to do the opposite of what they were supposed to do.

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Early this morning, while trying to get my heart ready for Palm Sunday, I thought about the traffic flow into Jerusalem that day 2000 years ago. Of course it was mostly foot-traffic then, though there was one very important donkey with the Son of God sitting on it.

When adoring crowds pushed toward Jesus in a type of Jerusalem rush-hour, there was no impatience or road rage, only joy and adoration. His miracles of healing had shown people he could do things no one else could do, and everyone on the Jerusalem road that day was deferring to him as part of a plan to make him their king.

There were no stop signs, and popular enthusiasm was propelling Jesus in a forward direction. A few days later, however, the “directional signs” had been tampered with and spun around. The zeal to make him king had come to a screeching halt, and the mob of well-wishers had turned on him.

Thankfully one person continued in a forward direction anyway, despite discouraging signs all around him. Jesus resolutely drove himself toward the cross and his own excruciating death while his supporters hightailed it in other directions. But instead of being influenced by the reversal of the traffic flow around him, he looked only to his Father for a definitive sign of what to do. He knew God never changed or amended his directives.

Although Jesus had been to Jerusalem many times, he knew this visit would be different than all the others. He dreaded it but continued his forward pace anyway.

As we took communion at church today, reminding ourselves of his shed blood and broken body on our behalf, I was flooded with appreciation that even when he could have made a turn, he resolutely kept walking straight ahead, all the way to Calvary.

“He steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.” (Luke 9:51)