Confused Daffodils

Have you seen them? It’s mid-February and daffodils are popping up everywhere. Along the winding roadside, in neighbors’ yards, I can’t help but notice them, and sigh. How sad that we won’t have our usual fabulous month of daffodils. I know we won’t because one of our Tennessee favorites is pushing up through the soil a month too early.

You see, they’ve all been tricked by this unseasonably warm weather. 

They must be saying to each other:  “It’s so gloriously sunny and warm, it must be mid- to- late March! “ (Uh, yes, I do realize I just put quotes around something a bulb might say ) And so these sweet blossoms stretch up out of the ground, slowly opening their not-ready-yet blooms, and BAM! It’ll be winter again. And all that beauty will be lost just because the daffodils have been looking at what’s happening around them, and choosing to copy every other bloom. And the real season that they’ve been waiting for all year will come but then, of course, it will be cut very short. Sadly most of the daffodils probably won’t even be able to fully open up their happy little yellow faces. They rushed to bloom.   And now they’ve lost their proverbial moment in the sun.

I have to say I’ve been a “confused daffodil” before; more than once, to be perfectly honest, but who’s counting ?

 And it all came down to my patience.  When thinking about various seasons of my life, I find that patience certainly isn’t my greatest virtue.  I’ve rushed lots of thoughts, lots of words, lots of applications, interviews, resume’s, and most regrettably the seasons of God.

Like those foolhardy daffodils, I’d take to looking at my circumstances, feeling the tug of my impatience and the adrenaline rush of emotional immaturity, then I determined that I would decide what season I was in rather than holding still. Falling out of step with that still small voice, misreading the signs through the lens of the impatient and the immature, I’d take my life in my own hands. I’d just take the situation right back out of God’s hands, where I’d placed it so many times before. Well ya know, God’s seasons can be awfully slow in coming and to quote Lady Grantham of Downton Abbey, “there’s nothing more tiring than waiting”. 

And so,  like the daffodils that misread a few warm days in the dead of winter, I  misconstrued the least bit of encouragement and defied God’s plan.  I’d try to force what I knew in my heart was not my moment…and by trying to “bloom” too soon, I ruined the whole thing.The price I paid for popping up and out too soon sometimes was high. Other times, not so much. But each time I missed the proud-of-me smile of God. And that irreplaceable, indescribeable feeling that He and I had done something together.

 

But heck, I don’t want to be a little ole daffodil anyway. I want to be a gorgeous aromatic Lily. A “Stargazer”. They’re pale pink with darker pink stripes or dots in their throat. They smell so heavenly, I can’t walk into Whole Foods without stopping first to take one long glorious whiff of  them where they sit in the floral department outshining every other bloom. I was so intent on this little happy ritual, that one day I leaned in a little too enthusiastically, and fell into the lovely display….but that’s another story. These flowers are so gorgeous that they would make someone literally “fall for them”.  They  are laboriously tended while they grow in perfectly climate regulated greenhouses. They’re carefully cut so that they might adorn the table or delight the lady of the house. They know their place. They don’t decide when to pop out of the ground. They wait for the hand of the ardent, wise gardener. 

  And, Mr. Ten Days, if you’re reading this, a bouquet of them sure would make this former daffodil mighty happy.

Fickle

I love beauty. I need beauty. And I desperately need my home to be a nest, a place of beauty. Growing up, my home was far from safe or comfortable. So it seems that long before I was able to identify the source of this yearning, something in me wanted to make my home comfy and cozy.  For the most part, every birthday, Christmas, and anniversary gift I received was a contribution to my nest.   As I think about it, my home is actually a collection of all those special events. There’s a story behind every piece in my house … or at least I know exactly where I got it. (And probably know how I “negotiated” to get it, too)

Before I met Mr. Ten Days, I had, like many of us did, a list of what I wanted in a Husband.  Of course 99% of the list consisted of Godly characteristics, but…there were a few items on the list that were not about his character. Like, “if it’s not too much trouble, could he have cute legs? “And, “please let him like the way I decorate cause I really don’t think I can change that.” Thankfully, God said yes to both of those selfish prayers.

Mr. Ten Days, innocently walking into this setup agreement between me and the Lord, didn’t know what he had gotten himself into. Since we married on “the mainland” and I moved to Hawaii where Mr. Ten Days had been living, we couldn’t afford to ship wedding gifts. So, our friends graciously gave us money and we bought our household needs there.  Well, my idea of “needs” and my new husband’s turned out to be a little different. Since we didn’t drink coffee he didn’t seem to see the need for a sugar and creamer. Discussing this pressing matter one day in our first year, he asked, a little exasperated, when this furnishing the house was going to end?? I laid the whole truth right out there. “When you lay me in the ground”.

Twenty-three years later, I have to say Gregg has been a really good sport about my “creativity”. What I love and adore one year, a few years later may have lost its thrill.  This seems to baffle him. He just doesn’t understand the concept of my change of taste. In fact, it rather offends, and quite possibly makes him a bit nervous. “But I don’t understand baby, I thought you loved that piece…remember?” Working with this little quirk of mine, and a limited budget, it has been my great fortune that my friends also loved my “things”. I have sold, traded, and bartered my way from one lovely furnishing to another, and I have delighted in feathering my nest with the soothing overstuffed chaise lounge, the dining room table sturdy enough to seat many friends, and the plump pillows on the quilted bed.  All of these ‘objects’ are a little ministry of comfort that I love to extend to family and friends. 

And yet, I know that all these things are temporal. I know they don’t have a thing to do with eternity. But I also know that if my priorities are right and if I am frugal, and asking the Lord to guide me, even in this, that He loves it that our home is a refuge to our family and to so many that He has sent our way.

As my furniture affections ebb and flow, and sometimes take a 180 degree turn in this on-going adventure of building my nest, I have comforted Mr. Ten Days by saying: “Just be glad I’m not so fickle about husbands".

Top Down Days

It’s February in Middle Tennessee. This is when I am usually boarding a plane to get outta here. Gotta get away from the grey and the cold. I’ve learned to do cold, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do grey for more than a few days without sinking into some sort of funk. Normally I’d be on my annual February get-me-some-sunshine trip to Sunny California.

We lived in the “Golden State” for thirteen years. The first years there were against my will, but I learned to do the ole “bloom where you’re planted” thing, until I learned to love it. Okay,that's not entirely true ... but I did grow to appreciate it. Now, though, it’s the perfect place to visit with family and old friends and old familiar stomping grounds.

Southern California is where our babies were born, and so even if it were in Siberia or a remote desert in Africa, that place would hold an exclusive place in our hearts.

But I’m not on a plane today. Instead I’m riding with the top down, music blaring, ‘cause today is what my neighbor calls “a gift”. Not sure who he thinks the “gift” is from, but it's a gift all the same.

For me, today's gift is knowing where both of my teenage drivers are and that makes for a happy Momma.  It’s sixty-five degrees and sunny Mr. Ten Days is in town and everybody’s safe. Days like these are not just for myself, though.  Wonderful days like these make me want to pray for my peeps who aren’t having a sunny day. Days like these make me want to drop down in gratitude that we are enjoying the blessings of God on one of His show-off days.
I‘ll keep this day in mind when it’s been grey for a week, and things aren’t so sunny inside our house either.
But for now, for today... I think I’ll pull thru for a Starbucks.