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| Our Eastern Redbud in morning light |
A
moonbeam wakes me at 5:20 this morning. “Ponder my faithfulness,” my Lord whispers.
I stretch my back, admire the
contrast of the glowing light on our new, dark wood floor, and spy the vacuum
cleaner. Today, the last day in April, I dust the house our God provided.
“Thirty days hath September, April, June, and
November, all the rest have thirty-one. February has twenty-eight, but leap
year coming one in four, February then has one day more,” I recite.
My husband offered little patience while I struggled
to memorize the number of days in each month using this mnemonic device. Thankfully,
I’m a February baby and can never forget the odd ball 28.
“Dad taught us the verse as kids on our way up north,”
Mel said. “Every summer he’d say, ‘Do you remember?’ Then we’d say yes and say
it.”
“Well, my dad didn’t teach the rhyme to my sisters and
me on our way south every summer,” I replied.
I consider my husband’s devotion to his National Geographic Atlas, hours mesmerized with boundaries, coastlines, and oceans while adventures from the world over wait upon my bookshelves.
We’re all faithful to different interests.
I listen for more ponderous
things, reluctant to let April go. I wonder if her meager rainfall will bring
abundant May flowers.
“Consider good news,” nudges my
Counselor.
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| My garden fairy, forever reading |
Yes. My health, home, and husband, although he claims
I hate geography.
The scent from his French press wafts upstairs to my pillow.
Mel is a morning and coffee person.
Although I wake early, I’m
inclined to absorb the morning slowly with a cup of herbal tea.
The sunrise strikes the blooming redbud tree waving magenta
branches outside my window. The clock says 7:15 when my feet touch the floor to
descend the stairs for my camera.
“The sunrise is burning up the redbud again,” I say to
my mate.
He knows my priorities and nods.
I carry my Sony cyber-shot upstairs, open the bedroom window,
click several photos of Mother Redbud and my garden fairy forever reading her book, and gather my stack of morning
devotionals.
The wind licks and licks raindrops while I journal,
read, and pray.
To conclude my meditations, I open to the good news in
Hebrews 13 and pause on verse 5. “Let your conversation be without
covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I
will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”
I vacuum the bedroom floor and marvel that meteorologists
know the exact time the sun arose this morning and will set at 8:33 tonight.
And I figure the age of our redbud from twenty to
twenty-three years old. Six of her offspring grow in the valley where lavender
once bloomed.
With the life-expectancy of 50-75 years, the trees
will long outlive me. Encouraging prospect, indeed.
Dear Reader, this time each year I email photos of
Mother Redbud’s edible blossoms to my daughters. And whoever would embrace something worthy, beautiful, and faithful to ponder.
I listen to April bellow another farewell. We submit
to 31 days in May.
