ORDER

Spring Memories and Crabapple Promises . . .
. . . The crabapple tree on our farm watched me grow up. It was an old friend, one I especially loved in the springtime. Even now I close my eyes and see its delicate pink-white flowers.
I smell the deliciously sweet fragrance of its abundant blossoms. That sweet perfume often journeyed on the night breeze and tiptoed into my bedroom through the open window.
Most spring nights, I fell asleep to the familiar cry of the whippoorwill and the sweet scent of those crabapple blossoms.
Several years ago I developed a hankering for a crabapple tree to see me through my adult years. I shared my Posey Road memory with my husband, Jerry. I wanted those sugary pink-white flowers to bud and blossom in our yard and herald the beginning of spring each year.
My hankering became a fixation. I would get my tree.
“I hereby declare that on Saturday next we will travel unto Pike’s Nursery and purchase a flowering crabapple tree,” I proclaimed one evening.
The next Saturday morning I prepared for Operation Crabapple. I rose early and even cooked a warm breakfast (Translation – I actually placed the Pop-Tarts into the toaster).
I gassed up Jerry’s revoltingly ugly sort-of-blue truck and located shovels and rakes. But as I dashes and darted I observed a definite lack of enthusiasm on the part of my dear husband.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” I asked impatiently. “Did you not realize that I decreed we would purchase a flowering crabapple tree today? Move it, Jerry. The clock is ticking.”
“Cathy, have you been outside?” Jerry calmly asked. . .
“Just slow down,” he instructed softly as he guided me toward the front door. “Now look to your left.”
And there it was – a flowering crabapple tree planted right smack in the middle of the front yard of our home.
“I bought and planted that tree three days ago,” Jerry explained. “You have rushed by it every day but have been too busy to notice it. Slow down, Cath.
Don’t miss the good stuff all around you.”

But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will teach you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind. --Job 12:7-10, NIV

“Chocolate, I believe, is God’s apology for menopause.”