He Came to my Kitchen

My catmint got a little too big for her britches and had to be cut back. I threw the remnant stems at my feet and the pile grew in the hazy, evening light.

I carried fistfuls inside, closing the door on the day. I chose a vessel - the thrift-sale pitcher whose beauty made me question the disposition of the seller. Who could be so willing to sell a pitcher embossed with cornflower blue roses for so little?

I plunked the misplaced discards into water and trudged toward a dream.

It was only the following day that I stopped to notice the wild beauty of this haphazard bouquet. I stole glances while I washed windows clean. I ruffled its feathers between confirming appointments and jotting grocery lists, then pressed my fingertips to my nose, smiling.

I kept thinking, over and over, God loves me. He sent me this free bouquet and knew it would be my favorite.

As I am prone to doing, I started to believe that the mundane clutter of my life somehow obscured the beauty of the gift. So I got busy and I tidied.

When it seemed that it still wasn't enough, I worked at curating a proper display, but I'm no good with the big camera and I had trouble fitting it all into the frame. I fretted over the wrinkle.

I took my own, special gift, and I turned it first into a chore and then, in quick succession, into a trophy case for my pride.

This gift was meant to fit right into my charmed life. Not the charmed life that pretend people live on magazine pages, or even the charmed life of real people with perpetually clean kitchens.

This gift sprouted and grew because He told it to, because He wanted me to smile. He knows my days are hectic and cluttered. He knows that I teeter on the edge of impatience and selfishness every day. He knows that I need him - I tell Him this.

So He came to my kitchen, where I could not for one moment forget. He never expected perfection and He surely did not come to make me feel inadequate. He just wanted to be with me, in my messy, everyday, magnificent life.