Gleaning Sticks and Leaning Flowers

I have to take a few minutes to record a couple wonderful moments of inspiration that came at those silent unexpected times in the last twenty-four hours.

Yesterday afternoon the sun came out and I bundled up and went out back for a few loads of firewood. I also scoured the grounds to fill my big clay pot of kindling. Hard enough to start my smokey fires with all this damp wood, I thought. I need some good dry sticks.

It felt almost like a spring day. Birds had come out to chirp after all the freezing weather we’ve had. This was an interlude of calm. As I lingered to collect my little harvest of fallen branches and twigs, the simple task suddenly filled me with gratitude.

Here I am, a widow, gathering what I need to make fire and I felt such a kinship with humanity. For centuries people have had to hunt and scrounge for firewood like this. How good of God to bring so much of it down for us. He provides food for the sparrows and his eye is on me too. I remembered the old hymn and the deep base voice of the man who sang that in church one Sunday when we were in boot camp.

I paused and looked around. The storms and high winds of recent days had brought down handfuls of broken bits and pieces. Just what I needed! Ha! Yet another of the many ways my God transforms in nature and in my own life.

Nothing is wasted in God’s economy. What may seem to be the worthless waste of a previous storm provides the warmth of a crackling fire on a bitter night.

He takes the bruises and the losses of my own limbs, and generates new passion, new hope and renewed life.

I just stood there with an armful of kindling and smiled up at the warm sun in a moment of pure worship. I marveled at the wisdom of the fallen twigs.


Then I was tidying up in the living room where I’ve planted a couple little bulbs of daffodils for my annual memorial of the great epiphany of 2006. What a joy to find the delicate yellow flowers opening and standing proudly on the coffee table at the center of the room.

They are all lined up like happy children, facing the afternoon sun out my western picture window. As if to mirror that stunning golden light, they add such refreshing color and beauty to the middle of this winter season.

Make me like one of these Lord.
Enable me to stand and mirror your love and beauty.

Interestingly, last week I was also moved by the occasion to splurge on a bunch of yellow tulips for myself. I arranged them in the wide glass vase with my bamboo and hoped as much of them, to brighten the room and fill me with delight.

But for some reason they did not hold as strong as the daffodils. By comparison, their stems seemed weak and the heads were drooping. I changed and fertilized the water, hoping to give them a boost, but realized that if I didn’t prop them up a little, they probably wouldn’t recover.

I frowned. These buds are much bigger, but it's only been a week and they’re sagging down to the table. What’s wrong with you guys? I asked, carrying the vase to the kitchen for some extra nursing. I rinsed and trimmed them up. As I was placing the stems across stronger ones, leaning them on one another and across the sturdiest portions, they seemed to say, ‘we all need support at times.’

Hoo boy. Another great reminder. Families. Friends. Churches. Neighbors. Although God can easily redeem every circumstance and provide for our individual needs as with the fallen twigs, we are not meant to stand alone. God placed us in groups and there are times when we need to lean on each other a little harder.

This is not a journey of one, but the Lord is at work in the body and we are all interwoven into one great universal story of redemption.

Collectively we reveal the fullness of his grace. Make us stand together Lord. The church is your prize, like a trophy of grace on your mantel.