A Violet Person



This time of the year the violets push through the leaves of the forest floor and send forth a small, beautiful, fragile-looking flower as a herald to the certainty of spring. My mother loved violets. This time of the year she would like to walk the woods and trails seeking them out to become excited when she found one of the little blue flowers. When she got where she could not walk so well, I took her violet-looking and she loved it still in a childlike way.
I was never sure why she loved the violets so much – I should have asked – but I can guess. For one, they are some of the first flowers of spring, blooming in the face of cold weather yet to come. Another is that violets push their way through leaves and debris on the forest flower to forge a place in the sun; a place to bloom at last in defiance of winter, and its surroundings. It seems it is determined to share its beauty in spite of it all.

Mother was like that. Mother was like that violet. In spite of all the pain I have seen her bear, somehow she could always manage a smile. In spite of her confinement and deprivation in nursing homes, she always had a good word for the staff and her visitors. Her smile was what everyone remembers; just like the beauty of the violet, struggling to smile in spite of all holding it down, in spite of wintery weather yet to come. God help me be a violet person for Your Glory.



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