08/27/2021
“How many plod onward, with eyes fixed on the ground, when they might be raised to the skies, seeing the glory of the Lord which is spread abroad over hill and meadow, for all eyes to behold! How many walk with introverted gaze, seeing only themselves, while their neighbor walks beside them, unseen and needing their ministration!”
- Laura E. Richards, from “Melody: The Story of a Child”
Ministration: the act or process of ministering. That’s just what the flowers have done this summer. We started with just the idea of having a large flower bed in the front yard to help us meet our neighbors and create opportunities for connection. One bed turned into many, and so began the flower’s ministration. They connected us with more of the neighborhood in one summer than we did in our first year-and-a-half of living in our home.
And oh, how it’s ministered to my heart, hearing that so many flowers have been gifted to loved ones with cancer, something so familiar with our son having been diagnosed twice with cancer (now in remission 🙏🏼). And it’s minister to the ache in my heart for a friend who handed her son over to the hands of our Heavenly Father almost two years ago, and another friend who let her angel fly, too, this summer, to heighten the triumphs above and leave cancer behind.
The flowers are also a reminder that while there is beauty in this life, it’s also fleeting, begging our eyes to stay fixed upward and outward, and to share love without condition.
