Of Pansies and Soap Bubbles

I sat down to write. My heart wanted to write about how we all are feeling during this time, but I wondered, do we really need another article on how to reduce stress during the pandemic? Do we really want to read another blog post about five thing you can do to keep yourself healthy? Do we really need another sermon about being courageous and not fearful?

Maybe.

But that wasn't what God put on my heart. Instead, He spoke to me about pansies and soap bubbles and thankfulness.

My husband, Mike, co-leads a life group at our church, and yesterday we hosted a Zoom call for everyone so we could visit and catch up, and share our burdens with others who care about us. When Mike asked for prayer requests, a dear lady in our group told us she had a praise. She had planted some pansies her son bought for her, and every day when she looked at them she was inspired with hope.

I've been mulling over that praise for the last 24 hours, and I started thinking. How many small things do we pass by each day without noticing them? How much beauty do we miss? How much hope and joy do we forfeit? How many pansies did we fail to see? How many opportunities for thankfulness have we passed by without notice?

The interesting thing about thankfulness is that it can co-exist with peace and joy and hope, but it will not share space with tumult or fear or anxiety.

Thankfulness is a discriminating partner: she welcomes sweetness and happiness, while banishing bitterness and depression. She's a magnet for everything good and kind, and a repellent of all things dark and selfish.  Thankfulness and all her humble companions expand to fill the empty places in your heart. She warms you from the inside out. She's more contagious than a virus, more satisfying than a long nap.

And she's there for the taking, every single day.

Besides the hyacinths, irises, and tulips punching their way through the soil in my front yard, can you guess what else makes me happy and thankful? These are some things that made it to my short list:

1. Bubbles. Soap bubbles top my list. The kind I blew with a plastic wand when I was a child. The kind that float through the air impossibly longer than you ever dreamed they could, morphing into odd shapes and flowing designs. I love soap bubbles. 

2. The smell of moist soil after a rain.  

3. The first ripe tomato of the season. 

4. The birds that flock to the feeder outside my window.

5. My heirloom flowers: The live-forever plant that belonged to my great-grandmother and has survived two transplants and two moves. And then there's the lilac bush from the home my husband and I bought from my grandmother. When we moved from that house, we harvested a sprig of a lilac bush my mother watered as a little girl when she lived in that house. Now it's a beautiful, full, lush lilac bush in its own right. A lilac bush with a legacy.

What brings you joy? What makes you thankful? What makes your heart sing? Take a walk and "smell the roses." Revel in the sunny faces of the pansies. Check out the newly emerged irises and tulips. 

Be thankful. It will sustain you through the pandemic.It will bring you peace.

Blessings to you today!