A garden is planted

Today was such a mixture of fun and overwhelming sadness.

I woke up with a raging case of “This house is a mess, if I have to live with you heathens one more minute I may explode!”-itis. So we cleaned house a bit. It’s still a mess, but it’s a bearable mess and that’s all I ask out of life. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but I have to not want to tear out my own eyeballs every time I look at it.

After cracking the whip and riding the kids like a third world dictator, I took them out for lunch! I’m a generous despot.

Penny Hawkins, I love her for many reasons, but this one is just tells the kind of person she truly is.

Hannah Deal, the little girl I’ve posted about who has stopped her unsuccessful treatment and is now just living out the rest of her precious time at home, lost her garden to the Florida heat and the family just didn’t have time to deal with it. Penny took it upon herself to organize a team, to get donations, and spearhead a group of us to go over and plant a new garden for Hannah. It was hot, I got filthy, and it was one of the most tremendous things I’ve done.

When Lisa told us that they had come to the decision that they could do no more for Hannah, my heart was just devastated. What, as her friends, could we possibly do? We can’t help Hannah, we can’t take away the pain of her impending death, we can do nothing. Then Penny just gave us this “thing” we could do….it felt like a physical way to show her how much we love them, how much we care, what we feel for them. So, we went, we played in the dirt, we planted those flowers and made a beautiful little garden of love for Hannah to enjoy.

On the drive over I watched the clouds come in, I had to drive through this mad rain storm and I just prayed that the Lord would provide us a break in the weather to plant this garden. As I drove off the highway, I drove out of the rain. These huge, dark clouds hung over Lisa’s house and we worked fast. We had a nice number of people to help, so it didn’t take too long, but we got it done and not a drop of rain fell on us. Just minutes after we planted the last flower and we stood back to look, the sun came out and just shined all over us. How is that for a direct blessing? We took pictures of Hannah with her garden, and we felt full of her happiness and smiles.

On the way home, I had to cry. My heart just hurts, it aches for Lisa, because Hannah doesn’t understand what’s happening, but Lisa does and she knows what the future holds for her baby girl. I remember the gut-aching feeling when the doctor told me that Peyton had cancer, that moment of pain so fierce that my ears rang and my throat felt closed and I can only imagine what Lisa must feel daily. Rachael asked me why I was crying and I told her. I explained that Hannah had cancer, a different kind than Peyton, and I told her the truth that her little friend she plays with at Lil Tales and family group was going to die. She understood that. Her face was so sad, and she held my hand and she told me “Then it was a good thing we made her garden today.”

I hope that you all are always loving those precious to you, that you never miss an opportunity to hug and kiss, that you never take for granted each moment that you are gifted.

Can you guess what my special contribution to the garden was?

f.r.o.G…fully relying on God
–Anissa