If of thy mortal good thou art bereft
And of thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.
–Saad
When I left work to stay home and take care of my infant twins, our financial circumstances dramatically changed. We went from a comfortable two-wage income to scraping by and dipping into savings to cover the gaps. During that time, we lived very frugally–no entertainment, no new clothes, no home repairs or improvements, no flowers in hanging baskets or in the planting beds around our home. Two years ago was the first time since Robbie and Kara were born, that I allowed myself the luxury of buying annuals again. I discovered that for me, flowers make such a difference in how I feel about my home and about our situation: if we can have these flowers, it can’t be all that bad.
We lived in Germany when I was younger, and I used to ride my bike to work at a small army base a short distance from where my family lived. To get there, I would ride through our town, a field of farmland, another small town, another field, some woods, another field, and then I would be at work. On these bike rides, I inevitably felt a prayer of gratitude in my heart for the amazingly beautiful world we lived in. Whether that day I was particularly moved by the cool and dappled wood or one of the rippling golden wheat fields, I felt peace and contentment for just being alive.
When life is hard, when life is good, the beauty of nature helps me to feel like a beloved child of God.
Brilliant!