By: Marcy Barthelette

Last week I shared a hard-won lesson about toilet paper and I wondered where this week would take me. I like
to talk with God before I write and ask Him to give me the words He wants you to hear. Sometimes a message
is loud and clear but sometimes it is very subtle and requires a little interpretation on my part. The message
this time smacked me right in the face.

A couple of weeks ago I stood looking out my back door at the lawn that Ken had just manicured expecting to
be greeted by a vision of lush springtime green. But I wasn’t! All I could see was an ocean of white fluffy balls

waving in the breeze, just waiting to thrust thousands of seeds in
an all-out assault on our unsuspecting lawn! Before we knew it,
they would sprout everywhere. Soil that seems useless for
anything else will always support dandelions. And don’t you know
they find the tiniest crack in the pavement to sprout and grow like
there’s no tomorrow. It seems they are always in an eager rush to
bloom and seed and drop to sprout again in their vicious cycle of
aggression. I have even watched a bloom cut from the plant or
sprayed with insecticide continue the process of reproduction.
Because it lies helpless on the ground, the wind can’t disperse the
seed so it all drops in the same spot and tries to sprout, sibling
fighting sibling for space and water and sunshine.

Ken often tells me that the dandelion flower is beautiful and, in truth, it is. When you take the time to study one
bloom at a time, they are intricate and quite lovely. Even the seed head has its own unique qualities and I have
to admit that I have spent some amount of time photographing both the bloom and the fluffy white seed head.
They are truly mesmerizing when backed by sunlight.

The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the creator. Louis Pasteur, French Chemist

Nature has many lessons to teach us if we keep our senses attuned to our surroundings. Dandelions, like the
ants in a former article, display a persistence that defies human imagination. Their instinct to survive and
reproduce is so strong they let nothing get in their way, not even mowers or chemicals. Imagine our world if we
could muster a fraction of that persistent endurance.

Flowers grow out of dark moments. Sister Mary Corita Kent, Artist and Educator

You’ve undoubtedly heard the phrase, “bloom where you are planted”. Like the dandelion, we should look for
whatever good we can find in the place or situation in which we are planted. There is a reason for everything
that happens in this life. Sometimes we wish we could see the bigger plan; we think life would be easier if we
knew what was coming. But if life were always easy, how would we learn endurance. Remember that diversity
defines personal character.

…because we know that trouble produces endurance; endurance, character;
and character, hope. Romans 5:3-4 ESV

Do you have enough endurance to go the distance?
More next week….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By: Marcy Barthelette

You may ask, enough of what? A few weeks ago the answer might have been enough clothing and toiletries packed for a vacation or business trip? Perhaps it would have been, do I have enough food for the dinner party we are hosting tomorrow evening? Or maybe, have we set aside enough for the kids’ college fund and for our own retirement.

Today, it seems our biggest worry is where the next roll of toilet paper will come from. Americans have been issued a wake-up call! It’s time to start seeing toilet paper in a new light.

At the self-check register, I asked the monitor when she thought they would restock toilet paper and she said they couldn’t keep it on the shelves and she didn’t know if they would get any more on their truck. Shortly after that, she received a message on her headphone that TP was being stocked. Ken went back to check it out while I continued at the register. He returned shortly, hands held high, clutching a 6 pack of Charmin Ultra Soft, our favorite brand! We were ecstatic! Who could have known that two fully grown adults could get so excited about a package of toilet paper? 

Before we left the store, I had a breaking news announcement on my phone. The World Health Organization had declared a global pandemic.

In the blink of an eye, a scary new word had become a trigger for everyone to fly into full panic mode, rushing to the stores to grab anything deemed necessary during a time of crisis. We didn’t really know what this crisis would ultimately look like but we wanted to be ready. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t choose wisely in the beginning. I’ve been a pretty fast learner but in those early days, I operated on gut reaction. They say there is a worrier in every family and it’s widely known that I am the designated “worrywart” in ours. I have to say I was edging toward paranoia worrying about what to do if we did, in fact, run out of toilet paper. Those of us whose memories include outhouses stocked with Sears catalog pages have long since scrubbed those memories from our daily lives. Anything less than plenty of Charmin in the cabinet was unthinkable!

After a couple of weeks of this new insanity, I was able to get a grip on my emotions and learn to shop with safety precautions in place. Eventually, I even found toilet paper. It wasn’t Charmin, or even very soft, but I finally had a small stock of paper. And that package of Charmin Ultra Soft that we scored on March 11, well, it is April 26 as I write and that package is still unopened. It seems that by being a little thriftier in our usage, we already had enough in our home…enough toilet paper, at least.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Matthew 6:34a NIV

 

Look at the birds in the sky! They don’t plant or harvest. They don’t even store grain in barns. Yet your Father in heaven takes care of them. Aren’t you worth much more than birds? Matthew 6:26 CEV

 

Do you have enough trust to go the distance?
To be continued……