My Prayer Tree

 

I have a very special tree in my back yard that I call my “prayer tree”.  According to my hubby Herman, it’s actually a weed and not a real tree, but I don’t care.  (Don’t some of us start out as weeds and end up being seen as trees, anyway?)  I love to get up earlier on summer mornings to hang up my

washing, so I can smell the sent of the wonderful, tiny little flowers that the tree has.  The flowers has the effect of making me close my eyes and draw in their sent to the point where my head is rolled back and my face is turned toward the sky… which in turn makes me look at Heaven when I open my eyes again… so I begin to pray and thank God for everything in my life.  This is a wonderful way to begin my mornings!

 

When I go to use the toilet, the open window lets the flowers’ wonderful smell waft in, calling me to come out and pray to say thank you for all the wonderful things in my life.  I smile when I smell it; it makes me happy.  I hate winter, mostly because it takes the joy of my prayer tree away from me and I have to struggle through the long, cold months to get to smell it again.  But oh boy!  The joy I feel when I get my first whiff of those little flowers!  I know it sounds corny that something so stupid can mean so much to me, but the time I spend hanging up my washing, smelling those flowers and TALKING TO GOD means the world to me.  It’s my personal little bit of alone time with my Father, spent surrounded by heavenly smells which I still insist He planted there years ago, knowing that it would someday become special to me. 

 

So in the same mindset, my eldest daughter Chené brought me a flower from her day mother’s garden the other day.  She explained to me that the flowers were them (Chené, little sister Mia and Herman), with me being the stem of the flower that keeps them all together… I FELT LIKE CRYING!!!  What wisdom to come from my fluttering, couldn’t-care little 5 year old!  It made me realise that in many households it is just like that – though the father is the head of the household, it’s the mother’s love and care and worry and prayers that keeps the family together!  (I know my mother did all of that and we still consider her our rock.)  But take away the stem and what happens to those flowers… sad…  I felt so honoured (as I still do) that my daughter thought of me as the stem – I just hope that I will live up to her vision of me!  I took a picture of the flower so I could tell you this story. 

 

May you too find a prayer tree in life!  And mommies – GO BE A STEM!!!

 

Be Blessed! C.