Nothing much
The clump of daylilies I removed from Lauren’s future fire pit area didn’t look any different from any other. The former owner of Lauren’s house was a daylily hybridizer, but not a well-known one. Maybe he thought he would leave “Sugared Grapes” there when he sold the home because they weren’t anything all that special.
I love them! The color, the pattern on them, the frilly edges, the colors fading into one another, the green throat, the grassy foliage … I intend to divide them and put them everywhere in the yard!
The new property owner certainly didn’t want them. Some of the daylilies and roses were already singed from the fires her husband made from the branches of the espaliered fruit trees. (Ouch!) To me, they are a new treasure.
Life as an aging Christian can feel like “nothing much.” Some days, surviving is the goal. Trying to keep up with household tasks is a challenge. It’s a far cry from forty years ago, immersed in stateside mission work.
My prayer this morning was to be of service in the Kingdom of Christ. I was putting freshly washed dishes away and thinking of the mundane tasks for the day. Is this all I’m supposed to be doing? What about the mission works that I thought I’d be able to do when the kids were grown? I haven’t had a speaking engagement for decades. I’m often barely able to take care of myself and my husband, let alone do all the good works that kept me busy in my younger years. My plant sales income isn’t what it was last year. Yes, I felt kind of useless.
I looked at my watch, I had a customer coming … maybe. She had apologized many times over the last few months that she wasn’t able to get out and pick up the daylilies she had asked me to save for her. She was caring for her father in his final years.
I had sent her a message a few weeks ago asking how her Dad was doing, and asking if she still wanted the daylilies. That’s when she told me he had passed away just days after the last time she had to miss our appointment. In my opinion, that meant she needed me not only to save these flowers for her, but that they would be gifted to her.
She ended up staying almost two hours, pouring out her heart in tears as I held her hand-hugged her. She went home with plants to memorialize her Dad.
It was not a grand gesture, it’s nothing that will make a big difference in our family income, but it was very much appreciated by a lady grieving for someone so close to her that she doesn’t know what to do with herself, a woman whose family didn’t understand why she would keep her Dad home when it required so much time.
Maybe my gift and my time won’t amount to much. Maybe the next person who uses my shoulder to cry on will be touched or changed by the love of Christ through me. Maybe not. But I do know that people have told me in later years that my “being there” for them had been pivotal in a tough time in their lives. We have no idea how much good we can do by taking time for a child of God – or potential child of God – in need.
The fact is that we never know when those opportunities for service will arise. Our service to God is not ended when we can no longer count on our health to be able to teach classes or help a family move into a new house.
The answer to my morning prayer came within minutes, but it isn’t always that way. Let us all pray that our days are filled with more than just living and existing until we are called home.