Daisies are for Love

“Would you like some daisies?” my neighbor was asking. “I am thinning out my flower bed and I have all these extra plants I’m getting rid of.” Daisies! My favorite flowers! Of course, I took them. Come Spring, I had thick, lovely stands of them bordering my front entry.

We were just getting settled after a transitional period between churches. We had recently assumed the pastorate of a small church and had moved into a modest rental home in the country. The location was idyllic, and I was able to overlook the shortcomings of the small house, which did have its own particular charms. It was light and airy with many windows overlooking a side yard where we had hung two porch swings right-angled from each other on the branches of two oak trees. It was a perfect conversation spot for us and visitors alike.

A tiny patio, a six foot square, was outside the front door. We bought a swing with a green and white awning that just fit on one side, and an umbrella table with chairs for the other side, the adjustable umbrella tilting to provide privacy and/or sun protection. A large shrub shielded one end of the swing. And then there were the daisies. Cheerful, thick and swaying gently on their slender stems in the hilltop winds, they brightened every morning for the entire season. When we moved from there a few years later, our land lady protested, “But you had made this such a home!”

Maybe that’s my knack, for as I was posting back and forth with a friend from Mississippi the other day who said she had lived in her home for 20 years, I mentioned that we had lived in our house there for that long. She said she remembered our “lovely house” and how homey it was. I knew I loved it, but it was nice to hear from someone else.

Then a few nights ago I had a gathering at our house for a church women’s group. One of our guests, especially, paid me lovely compliments on the décor (which is kind of Cracker Barrel-Inspired/Early Garage Sale). “You could have a bed and breakfast!” she exclaimed. (Well, I do have a “Mom’s Bed & Breakfast” sign in the kitchen I’d bought many years ago.)

The Bible says in Titus 2 that the older women are to “teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.” A keeper at home. I guess that’s me. We have many more freedoms than did the women of that culture, but the Bible is timeless. My children have grown up, but I still keep house for their father. Women will always keep the home, whether or not they have an outside job. That too, is timeless.