To celebrate my recent birthday, my neighbor, C.F., wanted to take me to lunch or to the annual quilt show at the Springville Art Museum. C.F. really enjoys “doing lunch” and all manner of “lady” sorts of things. You would like her. Everyone does. Our first lunch date was at The Brick Oven in Provo. Our most recent lunch date was at Mimi’s in Orem to celebrate my mother’s 86th birthday in May. C.F. is a delightfully companionable table mate.When she phoned the other day to arrange another “ladies'” event with me, I tried to let her down gently as I declined. She did not understand. She sounded irritated. So, I tried to explain my lifelong social anxieties and my recent decision to do myself a kindness and stop trying to please everyone to my own detriment and discomfort. In the end, she exasperatedly gave up on me.
In God’s flower garden, C.F. is a rose—a flower for all seasons and all climes, universally admired and cultivated. God’s flower garden, however, has an infinite variety of flowers. In God’s flower garden, I may be a lesser blossom, but I am grateful that there is room in His garden for one like me. He not only prepares a place for me, He values me for who I am (a “shrinking violet” ), and for what I—even I—contribute to His garden.
9 comments:
Silly mommy..YOU are a trillium, not a shrinking violet! heheeh!
Even trilliums can be "shrinking violets." The dictionary definition of shrinking violet is: "a very shy or unassuming person." I think trilliums are natively shy and unassuming, therefore they CAN be shrinking violets!
But, I also recognize that this seems to be mixing metaphors.
I'm glad to see you posting on the blog-world!
I'm going to look forward to reading your thoughts. :) Maybe some of our other family members will take a cue from you and start blogging too! I'm always an advocate of writing in almost any form!
To blog or not to blog? That is the question. Well, all this blogginess is starting to get to me. I hope it's not going to be one of those fads that is really cool for a month or two, and then everyone gives up on it.
Amen, to not trying to please everyone. I gave up on that a long time ago. It just isn't worth it. Next time C.F. calls you, just say "Bye!" and hang up!
If and when the time comes that I start my own blog, I will have to tell you a story or two about the times that I have tried to please others, and the subsequent outcomes. Moab comes drifting to mind. Anyway, I'll save that story for another day.
You know what I really admire, is mom's ability to eloquently and humbly describe her thoughts and feelings. It's words like hers that pierce my heart in ways I didn't think were possible. It's like the mom I never had.
Ah, Chris, it's the mom you ALWAYS had and didn't know it! Thanks for reading and for posting your own thought provoking comments. :)
Chris said: "I hope it's not going to be one of those fads that is really cool for a month or two, and then everyone gives up on it."
I hope so too. The several advantages that blogging has over the Scribbler's Cramp: the layout and pictures make it so much more aesthetically pleasing, So much more personality can be displayed. So much more fun to create. So much more versatile. So much more work .... Hmmmmm. :D
So true, it it requires work, it is more likely to be worth something.
That and there is lots of space to do what you want! I LOVE blogs. I check the 10 or so I know of everyday, and I have to admit I feel a little sad when people don't have fresh entries. I look at blogs like an open journal and I get to peek into people's souls. I used to sit in Chris and David's room in California and look though their journals because they had pictures and other memorabilia, and I never got tired of it. (Sorry for the breech of privacy, Chris!)
Well, I have gotten used to the Trillium business as well, but inasmuch as I have a close acquaintance with violets in my back yard, what I know about them pleases me: they are pretty and they get into everything, the planters and the lawn. Kind of like how the Trillium has done to me
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