For the flowers in our yard this summer we opted to try synthetic ones instead of the live varieties. Our primary reasoning was around the fact that we anticipated being away from our condo more than usual this summer which would bring more complications than usual in the watering department. Though our neighbors (who have incredible green thumbs) are always more than willing to cover for us when we are gone, it just seemed like more than we wanted to ask this summer.
Speaking of having a neighbor with a green thumb, our current neighbors remind me of Ron who lived next door to us for many years in Eastpointe. He worked for the DPW and had a beautiful garden every summer. I planted a huge row of petunias along the fenceline between our yards every summer, however, try as a I would, they would always suffer. Suffer, that is, until we returned from being away on vacation for two weeks. Upon our return we would always find them healthy and vibrant … much, much better than ever before. It was not until many years later that we learned that every summer Ron could not wait for us to be gone so that he would feel free to come into our yard and rescue our flowers! Ron is in heaven now (there is another story there for another day) … and, I guess you could say, has been replaced in our life with Cindy and Jude.
Speaking of our current neighbors, the only thing I have against them is that I sometimes question their judgement … I say this with tongue in cheek because the only reason I question their judgement is because they trust me to take care of their flowers when they are gone! Oh, if Ron could have only seen me watering their flowers this morning … a huge smile on my face while doubts race through my mind (am I doing this right? Make sure they get enough water … but not too much). Happily, I can say a) they have survived every year past when I have watered them, and b) they still trust me enough to keep asking.
Fifteen minutes (or just a little bit more) is all it really takes for one to water the flowers around a condo. So, it is pure joy to do this for our neighbors (and, in fact, it was not as much of an inconvenience for me around our own place during previous summers as it often felt). In fact, I have found watering our neighbors’ flowers to be very much like mowing our son and daughter-in-law’s lawn: There is joy to be found (rather than the chains of obligation for one’s own place) in doing something for others.
I find it wonderful to know that so much joy and satisfaction can be given in just fifteen minutes. And, since this works so well for me, I am going to take the liberty of making a little suggestion (a fifteen-minute suggestion) to you – though you might notice I am in some ways changing the subject. In this liberty I am moving from doing something for someone else (though they will benefit from it as well) to doing something for yourself.
The suggestion is that you start setting aside fifteen minutes every day to read from your Bible (or, if you have it in an app, having your Bible read to you). You don’t have to read for understanding (don’t worry about things that make no sense or words you do not understand). You can just read for the experience – which in reality is Jesus (who is the Word made flesh – see John 1.14) spending those fifteen minutes nurturing your relationship with him through the work of his Holy Spirit. Those fifteen minutes have me singing, “What a friend we have in Jesus” every day.
In those fifteen or so minutes of watering those flowers they receive just what they need to continually blossom beautifully throughout the summer. In the fifteen or so minutes we spend with Jesus as we read his word he will be at work growing the fruit of his Spirit in you. And just so you remember how beautiful that fruit is … “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”(Galatians 5.22-23)
Fifteen Minutes
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