A stollen Flower Garden

Memories from my little girl heart

A Stolen Flower Garden

When I was a little girl about seven years of age in Farmersville, CA, I lived on the street called Shasta Street next to the grammar school of Snowden. I would find myself staring out across the plot of grass between my home and the little lady who lived next door. I recall that in the season of late springtime or early summer how the weather would warm up, bringing with the sunshine soft rain showers and the flowers that would bloom all over my neighbor’s yard. A rainbow of colors and shapes of soft, fragrant petals to pick and adorn my tea table and hair.

I believed as a child that God gave us the flowers and that, wild as they were, they were free to all those who might want to pick them, and so I routinely went next door and stole flowers from her garden. I, not having the foresight to understand that this wasn’t the fact of the matter. Though in my childlike innocence thought that since she didn’t pick them, it meant that I could. My name is Spring, so it seemed befitting, and I relished in my playful heart the notion of my tea table all pretty with flowers. As I had often had tea parties with all my soft plush bunnies and toy dolls.

I, having a strong faith in the Savior, He accompanied me ever so often and we would speak on lovely things that helped me to embrace His place in my everyday life. But before I get distracted, let me again share my growth of learning that the flowers that adorned my table and my hair were not mine to pick for my good pleasure.

The sweet lass, though upset, came to knock on the door one morning and spoke with my mother to teach me that the flowers were not mine to pluck up and that if she would have me come over to her house every other morning, she would teach me how to take care of the garden and replant the flowers that I had so innocently stole. Excitedly I ran next door nearly every morning that early summer and helped pack the dirt around the baby seeds. A very much beloved pastime of mine — playing in the dirt, making mud pies and chocolate dirt cookies. It was quite pleasant for me, though it was hard not to want to pick all the pretty flowers.

At the end of a week, as my attention span was short, the sweet lady gave me a package of pink three-foot water lilies or some breed of lily. I was with my mother, all excited to plant some flowers around the base of the large oak tree and make it pretty, but once I had reached across the lawn to the great oak, the seeds in my paper package were gone missing, to my chagrin. I was sad and head hung low as my excitement transformed from elation to disappointment.

In the days that passed we had some heavy rains, and there was no sunshine to play outdoors. I recall one morning my mother called me to the living room window to look at the miracle in the yard. All those three-foot pink lilies had covered the yard, and it was a wonderment. I couldn’t believe my eyes — how beautiful they were, scattered every place I had walked. All that glorious splendor God gave to a seven-year-old girl in the form of flowers.

I went immediately and picked them at once. I brought them to my table, larger than life, and thanked the Lord for His beautiful, magical creation. I was blissfully happy.

I don’t recall planting any others or having a green thumb until I joined the FFA horticulture class in high school. It was my mother who could grow anything and bring back to life dead plants. She was gifted in this, and I believe she missed her calling. Or maybe her dreams were more simplistic.

However, the lesson escapes me still, though I understand when a person takes great care and pride in a thing, to see it swept away like a child picking the flowers from the garden of all their efforts, it can be discouraging to the process of working and waiting for the results of one’s labors. I hope that I have been more thoughtful in not trampling the efforts and prayerful outcomes of others’ dreams, rather they be the flowers in their gardens or any other such dream.

From My quiet Heart to Yours…

— Spring Lynn Booth

http://whispers-in-the-quiet.org
Email: Hopeministries2010@yahoo.com
FB Page: A Box of Sox Ministry
My URL: https://gravatar.com/springlynnbooth

Whispers In The Quiet

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