A Spring of Joy

This morning, I stood at my kitchen sink and stared unfocused out the window at the dewy yard. I couldn’t see the ragged canes of our black raspberry patch straggling through the yard, because yesterday morning some of our former youth and college kids came with their father and cleaned it all up for us. I thought for a moment about what an incredible blessing it was, how humbled we are to be loved so much.

Then my eyes fell on the zinnias on the windowsill. Seeds Ash planted for Mother’s Day and gave to me, sitting there waiting for me to move them outside. I have the perfect spot for them, just at the edge of the shed where I can see them every day.

I’ve been waiting until I could get that spot dug up and cleaned out because it has become so overgrown and encumbered with weeds that I want to start over, and I want Asher’s flowers to be the first planted.

Asher’s zinnias are wilted and dying.

Over the course of the last few days I’ve forgotten to water them, and I am afraid they are beyond hope.

And I sit and weep over flowers and pray over flowers and beg God to let them revive, for Asher’s sake. For mine.

Y’all, I feel like those flowers.

I sit and weep over my diagnosis, my fears, my struggles, and I wonder if I am too wilted and beyond hope.

I cannot go there. I must fight constantly against the whispers in the back of my brain. “Get them planted now, because next summer you might be gone.” And I mentally scream at the thoughts inside my head to SHUT UP, and I beg God for mercy on us and our home and our hearts.

I sit and weep over us and beg God to let us revive, for our children’s sake, for my husband’s sake, for my parents’ sakes, for my brother’s & grandparent’s and in-law’s sakes, for my friends’ sakes, for my sake.

Not just my body, but our hearts. Revive us, O Lord, with deeper love for you.

So I pray.

I pray for healing and grace and mercy and strength.

And I pray over zinnias, because no prayer is trivial. Because it matters to me, so it matters to God.

Thank you all, for your encouragement, support and prayers… we need them. Oh, how we need them!