Canadian pastor Elizabeth Conroy tells...
Illustration
Canadian pastor Elizabeth Conroy tells this incident:
Anne was coming to visit and in my mind, it couldn't have been a better time. We had moved into a house whose gardens had been covered over by slabs of concrete. To me, the front of the house was cold, and unwelcoming. For a flower lover like me, it was like all the signs of God's re-creation and resurrection had been buried. I almost felt like I was being drawn away from the sun. Unfortunately, by the time I saved enough to put in even a small garden it would be too late in the season to plant.
But before it was too late, something wonderful happened. I was visiting Anne when out of the blue she said, "You don't have room for any plants do you? I was walking through my garden this morning and I just decided that I needed to thin out my lilies."
My heart leapt. "Lilies?" I thought. "It couldn't be a coincidence, could it?" Lilies were a sign of the resurrection and Anne was offering me some. Before I knew it, I'd poured out my feelings.
Anne went into action. Within an hour, my trunk was loaded with lilies and bags of topsoil and compost from Anne's garden; everything I needed to make our house feel like home. Everything I needed so that a garden could remind me of Christ's resurrection.
When Anne arrived, the first thing I said to her was, "Your lilies are blooming!"
Anne looked at me with a baffled expression. She couldn't even remember giving me this wondrous gift -- a sign of God's forgiveness and re-creation.
Anne was coming to visit and in my mind, it couldn't have been a better time. We had moved into a house whose gardens had been covered over by slabs of concrete. To me, the front of the house was cold, and unwelcoming. For a flower lover like me, it was like all the signs of God's re-creation and resurrection had been buried. I almost felt like I was being drawn away from the sun. Unfortunately, by the time I saved enough to put in even a small garden it would be too late in the season to plant.
But before it was too late, something wonderful happened. I was visiting Anne when out of the blue she said, "You don't have room for any plants do you? I was walking through my garden this morning and I just decided that I needed to thin out my lilies."
My heart leapt. "Lilies?" I thought. "It couldn't be a coincidence, could it?" Lilies were a sign of the resurrection and Anne was offering me some. Before I knew it, I'd poured out my feelings.
Anne went into action. Within an hour, my trunk was loaded with lilies and bags of topsoil and compost from Anne's garden; everything I needed to make our house feel like home. Everything I needed so that a garden could remind me of Christ's resurrection.
When Anne arrived, the first thing I said to her was, "Your lilies are blooming!"
Anne looked at me with a baffled expression. She couldn't even remember giving me this wondrous gift -- a sign of God's forgiveness and re-creation.
