Devotionals

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As a child I spent most of my summers at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Mathis, an elderly couple who lived in a big brick house surrounded with beautiful flower gardens and a big swimming pool that would have been the delight to almost any child. My mother worked for the Mathises. Mr. and Mrs. Mathis became like grandparents to me since I had never met my mother's parents and had no close relationship with my father's parents. From the age of four until I was eighteen, I practically lived at the Mathises home along with my mother. My mother cooked, cleaned, and maintained the beautiful gardens surrounding the home. Those summer days spent alongside my mother were the basis of some of my fondest memories.
I had my share of chores to do if I was expecting a swim in the pool. I helped my mother out wherever she needed me to, but I preferred the outside chores. Watering the flowers, weeding the gardens, and cleaning the pool were some of my favorite chores to do. As the day would grow hotter, I would pick some fresh mint leaves to stir into a cold glass of iced tea and sit for awhile under one of the big shade trees. Looking back I know that I naively thought as a child, as I am sure most children do, that times such as those days would never end, and if so, not for a long time.
One early morning while I was cleaning off the patio surrounding the pool, Mrs. Mathis called me over to where she was weeding around some roses. Dropping the water hose, I ran over to where she was sitting childlike under the velvet red roses. Pointing at one of the roses, she said with an excitement I can still remember, "Look at that diamond on the rose." I stared, and for a brief moment I actually thought there was a diamond on the rose. The grass was still wet with early morning dew, and a dewdrop was situated so perfectly on that rose that the sunlight caused it to sparkle just like a diamond. We both just sat there admiring nature. Afterward, I went back to cleaning the patio and thinking how much I loved summer. It would be many years later before I learned the lesson of the dew on that rose.
Summers go by in a hurry, especially to a child not looking forward to the fall and the start of another school year. Eventually all seasons go by in a hurry. Years later, after I had grown up, I thought back to that summer morning in particular when Mrs. Mathis had pointed out the diamond on that rose. Just as the morning dew fades quickly, so does time, and many people who are in our lives. I like to think of those people who are in our lives for just a short while as the morning dew on that rose. The sparkling dew on that rose added beauty to something that was already beautiful. People who are in our lives for a short while do not leave us without adding to our lives. My mother, beautiful as she was, came to Mr. and Mrs. Mathis as a wounded soul. I witnessed a changed woman as my mother found her purpose and place in this world. Mr. and Mrs. Mathis needed my mother, and through their need, God healed her wound. I was blessed to witness such a divine plan.
I am thiry-six years old now, and those summer days of my childhood are over, but the memories are as fresh as they were yesterday. Mr. and Mrs. Mathis have both passed, as well as my mother. I never imagined a world without my mother; I guess no one does. In a brief moment, the morning hour was gone and along with it three people I loved and cherished. Nature had taught me what no textbook could. Life is short, and the people who are in our lives should never be taken for granted.

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