I've always had such a love for wild flowers.
I was that kid who brought bunches of dandelions and daises home.
For as long as I can remember, I have always brought the outside in and had it on the table shedding petals left and right, or drying on the wall for my enjoyment.
Once talking with my oldest girl about what HER home would look like she made no bones about telling me with wide eyes that SHE would NEVER have any dead flowers hanging on HER walls.
To each their own.
She'll wonder why I don't visit....
I grew up with such a woods next door and endless possibilities of bouquets.
Always, always, always in any bouquet was goldenrod.
And I'm not a soap-box kinda girl but if I was, I'd be in a field of goldenrod telling everyone that this is NOT what causes seasonal allergies.
Just for the fun of it I'd make sure to wave a handkerchief too.
Poor misunderstood Goldenrod.
There are all kinds. Late Goldenrod, Solidago Goldenrod.... even Wrinkleleaf Goldenrod.
It's edible AND it's part of the sunflower family.
Now don't you feel badly for how you've mistreated it all these years?
I've always loved it and have some this moment on windows and tables, much to my daughters delight I'm sure.
Next to some Queen Anne's lace (the large white flowers with bunches of tiny white flowers and usually a black middle that you always thought was a bug) and some daises it just makes Summer so enjoyable.
It will shed in such a short time, and you'll have lots of yellow to clean up, but it's worth it for the Summer it brings inside.
Today I was reminded of a small March fire and six enjoying it's blaze as the heaviness of the words, "We're leaving," hung in the air.
We all just looked at the wood stove and watched the flames lick the glass until we finally found more words through tears to speak to one another. This was not the plan for our newly founded Eutopia.
What we six had in New York was beyond explanation.
Quicker than you could shake a stick, our kids became life-long chums and WE became so entwined in each other's lives that we couldn't dream of living farther than just down the road from one another.
In all of my life, I have never seen such connectedness in Christ as families. It was just God and God alone that brought the shy one, the loud one and the understanding one and their broods together.
We walked the woods and prayed the woods and sat so close we could almost feel each other breathe.
Our three-fold cord was not to be quickly broken through a move out of state. Hadn't we JUST moved HERE?
After that night and the gut-wrenching sadness that we all felt, I told my husband that I was never talking about leaving to them again. He would have to do it.
He didn't like it anymore than I did.
But this is sometimes what God asks us to do in this wild and wonderful life.
It may be crazy unexplainable- a wild idea- but if it's what God asks us to do, than we just do it.
And never in a million years would the three of us families look back and have any idea that God would end up moving each family off of that stretch of road and into three completely new places in just a few year's time.
Every one of us had their roots dug up to be planted completely out of site.
To new places to take root and grow just like we did when we were all together.
How much God desires to spread His salt and light to the corners of this world.
Did you know that Goldenrod honey is dark and rich and strong when it's in the presence of other "nectars?" It is light and sweet on it's own, but when you have it SO close to the flowers around it that the pollen collected is influenced by it and other wild flowers, the honey is richer.
And once thought to cause allergies, Goldenrod honey can be used to lessen allergy sufferers sensitivities.
Maybe God has moved you from a new job, from old friends and from loved ones.
Maybe He has uprooted you from your normal and your comfortable and you feel that your roots are just left to dry out and slowly dry you to death for loneliness.
Perhaps you had a plan and God was supposed to stick to the plan and He has a different plan for what you were thinking of doing.
Maybe you thought you had a good thing going for the Lord and He has sent new marching orders that have you scratching your head and even wiping your eyes.
It may take a bit to rewet those roots.
It may seem odd and even WILD.
But that new to you is setting you amidst those who will help you bring to bear a delicious, deep, dark honey for Him.
And you will help others do the same.
You might just be the one to help with one's sensitivity to God's Words. You are just the dose of love and compassion that someone's hurting heart has needed for so very long.
And if you hadn't been brought into the bouquet it just wouldn't have the healing effect that God wanted it to have.
In God's amazingly wild way He chooses to use the looked-over, the unsung, the weeds, to make a beautiful bouquet for HIS glory. How wonderful is that? How awe-inspiring and humbling.
I bet there are Wildflowers in heaven.
And I wonder, just wonder if there my daughter will decide to have them on her table.
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