It’s Whimsday! (as I’ve decided to name it), and Wordsday, as I’d already named it. Both. The day’s whim is a delight. The day’s word… is “difficult.”

I’m here typing at the computer—words, on a whim. It’s 4:58 AM, says the little toolbar date-and-time, up beside the search symbol. And I feel fresh.

I came here in the first place, for other reasons than to write.

I woke considering what whim I might pursue this day, and my saner self said to my silly self that I really better make the planting of seeds my “whim,” because otherwise the seedlings won’t be big enough to set in garden soil, come warmth beyond final spring frost. So I lay abed a while, considering how I might plant vibrancy amid vegetables, sheer joy of floral beauty alongside practical produce.

But first things first: Prayer to and readings from the Creator of both. To the computer for those things relevant to the eternal I wanted to find…

Before me on the screen arises the profusion of blossoming delight I’d put there to replace the tired autumn scene so out of sync first with winter’s glacial covering I’d sheltered under, and now with spring thaw and the whispering hint of emerging buds making fine filigree  on branch tips.

Back four years ago, I went “out on a whim”* and bought that merry rainbow of floral colors. I figured my eyesight might soon lose its ability to feast on  color nuances and fine-veined designs of petals and leaves. (It didn’t happen; God gave me better vision, in fact—through worse cataracts, go figure—and the corneas have been holding pretty steady, so I can still get a heady and quite clear view of beauty everyday.)

After that spring I neglected to plant so colorfully… But this year, again I want to go wild with color, even in the veggie beds.

This planting plan speaks a parable of victorious living amid the hard stuff…

You see, if I were to write about a Wordsday word today, it would be “Difficult.”

That word jarred me, back early in my Lenten reading, in Matthew 7:13-14. It’s Jesus’ word describing the path we must travel to follow Him: Not an easy-peasy highway of believe-a-tidbit-of-truth-with-your-head-and-get-a-free-ticket-to-heaven.

“Difficult,” He says, “is the way that leads to life, and few there are that find it.” A tight squeeze and a hard trek. Similar to the hard and painful path He had to tread to blaze the trail for us.

Stark, piercing, practical truth.

Yet, though that word jolted me at first reading, as I pondered it gave me unexpected encouragement, comfort, assurance—as it has continued to give since.

I have known difficult. I know it now. And sometimes it leads me to suppose I must have made a lot of wrong turns.

But this word He speaks, “Difficult”… It tells me otherwise. It tells me He knows. It assures me I’m on the right route after all. It advises me that if I make the choices He desires, difficulty will result. But it also reminds me that my way will never be as painful or tough as the one He took, for love of such as me…

Hard and practical truth, yes—with great blooming beauty in its midst. May my garden’s duet of these two elements this year remind me that this is how His truth, and way, is. Hard sometimes and practical always, but nonetheless glowing with beauty and joyful bloom. And may I nevermore fail to plant, amid the hard practical, the softening beauty of thanksgiving and rejoicing in Him who is here with me through it all.

*****

*(Quoting Mary Engelbriet)