Mud pies anyone?

                                                              Mud! Mud! Glorious mud! 

                                                 Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood.   

                                                  So follow me, follow, Down to the hollow, 

                                                  And there let us wallow In glorious mud.

Considering that the state of Kansas has been in a deep state of drought for several years - and parts of the Sunflower State are still - - - I should not speak these words - - - but I hate mud!

Recently we have been blessed with rain.  One night in fact it came so quickly and rained so hard that our back yard got a little scary . . . We had not witnessed that much water since moving here a year ago.  Water came from our neighbors who are higher up than us and ran between us and the neighbors house next door - picking up their new cypress mulch and a baby bird - and swooshed through our yard - right up to our back door - - - and off our patio.  Didn't last long - nothing hurt - well except for the bird - - - but mud - yuck.  You see our yard is not all grass - it has some large areas of dirt - anyway - you get the picture - water - dirt - - - mud.  

I love that God gives us some great lessons in nature though, don't you?  Tonight as I finished cleaning up around the yard - and my flower gardens - I decided to grab the shears and trim the rose bushes - With all of the rain and sunshine they had grown like crazy.    I quickly snipped away in the front of the house and hauled the prickly thorned rose stems into the trash can near by.  Heading out back - I trimmed up the small climbing rose bush - making quite a little pile of thorny (real thorny) leaves and stems.    Shoot forgot to grab the trash can - didn't have a sack - or anything to put the piercing little stems in  - - and I was so tired - didn't want to walk one more step to go back to the garage for the trash can - - - so I thought to myself . . . hmmmm . . . maybe if I gently touch this mean looking pile of needle like thorns  very lightly very carefully with very little pressure - carefully, easy, surrounding the entire pile with gentle hands and careful moves - - - I wouldn't feel any pricks and could inch my way to the garage . . . Get the picture???   It worked!!!  I easily lifted the entire pile up off the ground - the stems stuck to each other I guess - and not to me - - - and I was struck with this thought . . . 

Maybe those "thorny" people in life that we face each day should be handled the same way?  Like I said - God speaks to me in nature and his creation - and the lesson I took was that sometimes people who are rough around the edges just need to be handled with gentle caring attention - maybe it is best for me to take a soft approach - and then nobody gets "stung"!!    It certainly worked tonight with some angry looking roses -and after all, aren't  people who are "stinging and barbed" on the outside - still a beautiful rose in God's eyes.   Handle with  Care.

Blessings tonight in mud and thorns.

                                                 

“He who slings mud generally loses ground.”

Adlai E. Stevenson