A Glimpse of His Glory
It was early Thursday evening, August 27, and the sun was still high when I pulled my car in front of Teresa’s house. She, Stephanie, another friend, and I had been to a visitation for a friend and past co-worker. Teresa was getting ready to disembark when she asked, “Hey, do ya’ll have a minute?” Stephanie and I looked at each other, nodded and said, “Sure.”
Teresa pointed to the large, stone enclosed circle in front of her house. “You see that? See those flowers in there?” Stephanie and I looked at the flowers and said, “Wow! They are really beautiful, Teresa!” Then she pointed to the house next to hers to the right in the cul-de-sac.
“See this house here? I don’t know if you remember, but my neighbor there passed away four years ago. She always planted gorgeous flowers in her yard every single year. They were just beautiful. After she died, I wanted to plant some in the yard for her husband to have, but I was afraid it would make him sad. I couldn’t decide what I should do. I prayed and prayed about it and didn’t know so I never did anything.”
Teresa pointed back to her front yard again. “Well….the next spring I had flowers in my yard. And they came back, year after year after year, for three years. Then this spring Kurt (Teresa’s husband) went out there and saw nothing but clover where the flowers had been. Assuming there was no way the flowers would come back another year, he got out the sprayer. After he took care of the weeds he came inside and said, “Teresa, those flowers aren’t coming back this year. There was only a bunch of clover there so I sprayed weed killer.”
Teresa went out into the front yard and pushed the clover back with her hand. Tiny little growths were under there, but Kurt hadn’t seen them because they had been covered. The shoots were withered and sad looking, much like the weed-sprayed clover above.
She said, “I began to pray. ‘Lord, you can do anything! You can spread these flowers around as much as You like! You can bring dead things back to life! Show Your glory, Lord; Show Your glory!’ And look! Look what He did! He brought them back, not only in the circle, but in the flower bed close to the house! They’re everywhere! Just look at them!”
Stephanie and I were speechless. For these flowers to come back four years… and after receiving a weed-killing shower was something to comprehend. “Teresa,” I asked, “Would you mind if I write about this?” She gave me a hearty, “Yes!”, and I told her I would be in touch with her soon.
After I dropped Teresa and Stephanie off at their respective homes, I couldn’t get the story out of my mind. A few days later I was still thinking about it. I looked outside the window and thought, “I need to have pictures of those flowers before the fall and frost get them.” I called Teresa and I was over at her house in less than ten minutes.
In the process of taking the pictures, Teresa and I talked and marveled again about what we were seeing.
“Teresa, I can’t believe that these flowers came back again and again and again after you planted them the first year.”
She looked at me intently and said, “Nooooo, Mary. I never planted these. They must have come from my neighbor’s yard. The wind must have blown or something. I never planted ANYTHING. Not one thing.”
Stunned, I stood there looking at the vibrant display of multi-colored impatiens before me. An impatiens is an annual…a flower that has to be replanted every year even in the sunny state of Mississippi. Oh, sometimes they’ll come back, maybe a year, if you’re lucky, two maybe. But FOUR? And spread like wildfire? I looked over at Teresa’s neighbor’s yard. Not one single flower in any of the flowerbeds. Not one. Unbelievable.
Teresa interrupted my thoughts re-iterating, “When Kurt sprayed the weed killer I just prayed. “Lord, you can do anything. You bring dead things to life. And look what He did!”
A thrill coursing through my veins I looked at Teresa and said, “I’m so glad you said that, Teresa! That’s what He does best! Bring dead things back to life!”
“And the circle here, Mary. This circle once had a River Birch growing in it. We had a bad storm one year and lightening struck it. Kurt ended up having to cut it down. We never pulled the roots up. Look…you can see the roots here.”
Indeed, there they were, knotty tree fingers taking up most of the bed underneath the flowers. How in the world had those flowers taken hold?
So many things in this story won’t let go of me. I’m humbled beyond measure at Teresa’s faith and prayer. I am reminded that the simple prayer of a righteous man, or woman, avails much. *
I also feel as if I’ve witnessed a miracle of sorts. St. Louis has cold weather, with heavy freezes. Believe me when I say, flowers like impatiens just don’t resurrect themselves year after year after year after year in our climate with such a display. Especially after being sprayed with poison.
And it makes me think about hope. I know I’ve been writing about hope a lot lately. It’s because I see people, families, communities, and a nation rattled to the core with financial, health and spiritual circumstances. When it shakes the place where you live, your whole foundation can feel as if it’s about to crumble around you and you can find yourself believing that you…and your foundation…will be buried beneath the rubble forever. But we serve a God who brings hope to the hopeless, and life to the lifeless. We serve a God who can bring dead things, financial, spiritual and yes…. physical things back to life.
It is what our God, our Lord, our Redeemer, does best.
*James 5:15 NIV Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
And I want to thank Teresa for letting me tell her story. When I read it to her over the phone and asked her permission to use the photos and to verify the storyline she said, “Mary, you got it all down. Of course use the pictures…that’s what this is about…letting people see God’s glory through these flowers.”
Spreading Seeds
My daughter, Julie made the comment that when I show these pictures, we’re spreading Teresa’s neighbor’s flowers. I hadn’t thought of that.
You never know what God is going to do!
