Hollyhocks Over The Septic Tank

  

When we were young my cousin, Dorothy, and I loved to visit Grandma and Grandpa on their 15-acre farm.  They had an acre garden of delicious vegetables, as well as productive apple trees, a coop of clucking chickens, stilted cages of cuddly rabbits, kittens, cocker spaniels, a swing our great uncle hung from a giant tree in the yard, fresh well water, and many flowers. 

The farm was a magical place for us.  We were not required to do any chores. Our grandparents would order a truckload of scrap wood blocks dumped in their driveway, which would be used for fuel in the kitchen wood stove later. 

   But before they had to be moved to the wood storage bin, we would build with them for hours.  We would design imaginary towns and all that went with that.  When we got tired of playing roads, cities, towns, and buildings, we got to lob them into the basement storage container through the window, and pretend we were playing basketball.

Sometimes we would climb up the ladder in the barn to the hayloft and then jump in to the hay stack below.  We would do this again and again until we were tired and needed to get a drink from the hose Grandma used to water with.

Grandma grew red, pink, and white hollyhocks down hill from the two-story farmhouse. One of our favorite activities was to make hats and puppets with them. We would play fashion show, or create a drama for our flower characters to perform.  Sometimes we would pick snapdragons to add variety to our designs.

It was just a few years ago that we learned the hollyhocks grew over the septic tank.  Ewww we said.  What if we had broken through the cover and fallen in?!  Yuck!  If we had known about that we probably would have never played with the hollyhocks! 

But sometimes isn’t life like that?  We may be living in a world that is a cesspool with all of the sick ideologies like radical Islam, and Communism, sexual immorality being turned into a political football, the truth of Christianity being suppressed by wicked hearts, and other unmentionable, unbelievable evils, but we have beauty in this world as well.  What joy we experience when we meet a newly born baby or attend a wedding and view the radiant bride and happy groom. God has made good things for us to enjoy--  even Seahawk mania!