Tulips!!

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend!  I worked in the yard for hours yesterday, weeding, cleaning up mulch beds, trimming, etc.  Needless to say, the muscles are feeling it, but that's alright.  The Lord couldn't have given a more perfect day for that kind of work...not a cloud in the sky, cool and breezy -- it was glorious!  He and I had a great day together.  Don't you find times like that wonderful for thinking, praying, listening and reflecting?   

I had taken these photos last Saturday, as I knew the tulips wouldn't last much longer.  I have had so much fun with them...from the anticipation of watching for the first one to pop through the soil, to the excitement the day I noticed not one, but 20-something of them!  I began calling them "my babies."  Every day I walked down our sidewalk, or pulled the car into the garage, I'd look at them growing and it never failed to make me smile.  I'd often say, "grow babies, grow!"  My hubby even started saying..."Did you see your babies, today?"  How incredibly beautiful and perfect that they began blooming on Easter Sunday.  I have enjoyed their brilliant color and beauty every day since then. 

Flowers have always fascinated me.  Such a beautiful reward for the hopeful heart who plants a seed and shows some love.  That is to say nothing, of course, of their incredible display of God's creativity.  

April Gifts

Your dawn of sunshine does impart
The warmth of spring upon my heart. 
Forsythia sprays its radiant hue
Against your sky of cloudless blue.
Rows of tulips on the lawn
Sparkle as they stretch and yawn.

And as we mark the moving hours,

Clouds roll in with sudden showers. 
But not with sky too dark to be
Without some hope for all to see
At the very end of day
The sun peek through to leave its rays.

O April day, you seem to know

How to coax the flowers to grow.
Your sun and moisture in good measure
Give another spring to treasure. 

~ Elaine B. Porter

(from Ideals Magazine)