Granny's Pantry # 25 Thistles Among the Daisies

Luke 12:27 (NIV) says, “Consider how the wild flowers grow.”          
There’s a field just across from the lane leading to the High Rock house that spreads a perfect canvas for Davidson County’s flowers of spring and summer. My favorite is Queen Anne’s Lace. They grow uncultivated and untamed, but their delicate intricacy is astonishing.

Late summer brings bursts of yellow roadside daisies. Their proliferation and enthusiasm to fill as much space as they can with joyful color is a example to us all.               

A more sobering lesson, to me, comes with the small, white daisies of spring. They appear in the field without the drama of their later cousins; their presence is subtle, almost shy and unassuming. But in the field in front of High Rock, these lovely little flowers do not come alone.

If you stop to notice, there are thistles growing among the daisies. The deep purple thistles are taller, more colorful and more easily noticed. 

They are beautiful and threaten to upstage the little daisies, but their beauty is deceptive. They have been described as prickly noxious annoying weeds. 

Is this juxtaposition not a reality we encounter in our own lives? Thistles among our daisies.

While we love the abundance of daisies in our lives—the blessings, the good times and people that surround us---we can be sure that, this side of Heaven, there are also the thistles—tough times, hard places, sadness, sickness, and death.

To the visitor, High Rock was almost magic, a retreat hidden away, off the highway and back fifty years. There was quiet loveliness and nurturing in the stately old home place. It was a place to be happy and loved.

And I know now it was also place of hardship and long, hard work. For every birth there was a death, for every joy a sorrow.  Daisies and thistles. The ebb and flow of life this side of Heaven. We need not be surprised.       

Granny’s gone. Her standards of how to make life lovely for others every day live on.
Granddaddy’s no longer here, but the feel of his hands remains strong.
Uncle Brooks and Aunt Lorene have left us, but the family they started grows strong.
Aunt Ruthie sits in her chair and wonders where she is, but hanging above her is a canvas of beauty she created, and that beauty can be seen on all of our walls.
Mother is both strong and fragile. Her daisies are her children and her grandchildren. Her thistles were giving up Daddy and Janie for a little while, and the challenge she is facing now, with her usual resolve and bravery.    

                          Even at High Rock, there are thistles among the daisies.                Like most families, we have celebrated and we have mourned together.
                              High Rock is changing due to the thistles of life,
                            but we are finding new daisies among the prickles.
                    The good memories that grew out of Granny’s Pantry live on.

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  Matthew 6:45

…weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Psalm 30:5

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.  John 16:33