I’ve got an idea in my head to eventually move all the material from my dated and neglected web site to the blog and move the blog to the main web site address. Since I’m about to get a new PC and have no desire to install the obsolete FrontPage software on it, now would be a good time to start. Since it’s Valentine’s Day, I thought it would be fun to share the little story I wrote for Linda that initiated a rapid move from casual friendship to something much more. I delivered this in February, proposed in April, and we were married on June 19, 2004.

Desert Flower

I found a flower growing in a barren, arid place. I would almost say that it found me, for its vivid brightness seemed to call to me from the side of the path. It was a beautiful flower, so out of place in the desolate landscape where it grew. It looked so delicate, yet to be here in this place it must be hardy indeed. I gazed at it with admiration. I thought to pluck it up and take it with me on my journey. Oh what a hasty and tragic thing to do, for then its life would be but for a moment, and no one would ever have joy from it again. I can hardly bear to leave it in this place with no gardener to care for it and make it grow, yet I know that it does have a gardener, far better than I could be. No earthly gardener makes anything grow, but He does. We only help as He has shown us the way. I have water with me. Dare I share some of it? What if I share too little? What if I share too much? I fear even to touch it, lest even that be unwelcome. I put forth a tentative finger to feel the delicate peddles. I wonder if it would grow in my own garden where I and all who pass my way would be blessed by its bright beauty, but I cannot think of that now. Perhaps it was meant to thrive right where it is. Perhaps it is meant for someone else’s garden. Those questions do not have answers now, and do not need them. I only want to be the Gardener’s hand. In this short time, I have come to love the flower, and I want most of all to see it in the fullness of its glory, growing and reflecting back the rays of the sun in the profusion of color that is its potential. I will tend it wherever it grows best until the Gardner stays or stills my hands.