Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Flowers (10/03/05)
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TITLE: Promise Petals | Previous Challenge Entry
By DeAnna Brooks
10/07/05 -
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Her world, that as recently as yesterday still held unending melody, now fell silent. Gone the ceaseless giggles tickling DeLyn’s day like butterfly wings. Today Amber’s voice lay buried beneath a petal carpet. The same petals that a day ago adorned the now naked stems left swaying in the breeze, alone, stems clutched in Amber’s tiny hand as she flew down the path into DeLyn’s outstretched arms.
Since Jim’s death a year ago, DeLyn and little Amber clung to God as much as they clung to one another. They found Him everywhere, loving nothing more than discovering His presence, together. They felt His touch in gentle breezes adance around them, sometimes whistling through treetops overhead, but always a reminder of His nearness, His enduring love for them. They saw God’s artistry in every dawn and setting sun. Mother and daughter alike cherished His voice in summer thunder and in the robin’s song that began even before the sun gently kissed their day. They knew God’s laughter in the twinkling starlight wrapping snuggly about them at day’s end. They found Him everywhere.
However, of all the places they found God, the most precious remained the evidence of His presence in every budding flower. Jim had taught them to see God there. Each bud, he said, whispered a promise of God’s faithfulness, the mystery of God’s grace.
The first flower Jim presented DeLyn he thrust at her shyly, before running off without a word. They’d been school kids then, but she remembered it as if it were yesterday. A promise of tomorrow lay hidden in that fragrant blossom, a promise they grew to cherish over passing years.
A man of few words, Jim carried his heart into DeLyn’s world with every bloom he gave her. And marriage didn’t end the message. From awkward lad, to strapping youth, Jim’s hands bore the scars of working the soil, but they also bore a flower home at day’s end, a reminder, he said, of God’s blessing of love.
Jim’s daily offering never ceased to take DeLyn by surprise. She didn’t know why, it simply did. The pleasure he found in delighting her never failed to warm them both. And DeLyn had taken to preserving ‘the promise’ in flower art to decorate the walls of their tiny cabin. The flowers he’d given her on their wedding day, the handful of colorful buds he’d held out to her tenderly with shaking hand the day Amber was born, and, of course, the rose. The last rose, still visible on the mantle, he’d offered wordlessly to her, though a world of promise clearly spoke to Delyn through Jim’s eyes, before death unexpectedly tried to silence the promise.
But Jim had taught DeLyn and even little Amber, who received her first bloom from Daddy with chubby little fingers, to look to God’s faithfulness and grace in every bloom he’d gifted them with.
After Jim’s death, DeLyn and Amber loved nothing quite as much as gathering flowers, a gathering of promise. Yesterday had been just that. A gathering. Flowers spread profusely across the fields. Giggling filled the air as Amber gathered so many her hands couldn’t hold one more blossom. That’s when she flew down the path into her mother’s outstretched arms.
Together they laughed, faces turned heavenward, as gentle rains began to fall. Well before they reached the cabin they were each soaked, as much in laughter as in rain.
The cough came, in the night. Vicious. Unrelenting. And with the dawn came a darkness so total DeLyn could only stand silent in its presence. Silent before the rainbow carpet now blanketing the barren soil over the tiny grave. Promise had fallen with each tiny petal until DeLyn stood, hopeless, heart stripped bare.
At last, turning her back on all yesterday held, DeLyn wandered down the hillside and through the cabin door, utterly alone, emptied of hope, knowing only darkness remained to greet her.
Then she saw them, each flower art decorating the walls bespoke promise of new tomorrows, God’s faithfulness, the mystery of grace. And she knew. With the dawn, she would gather blossoms.
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