I watch the green baby each day as he twines his way up, clutching onto the rungs I’ve provided. He’d grab onto me too, if I stayed still long enough. Then he claws at the air in front of our back door. Maybe he thinks coming inside the house with me is a good idea.
“Oh, you don’t want what’s in there.” I brush him away from the doorway and poke him back into his trellis with Mama Morning Glory. “You’re better off out here.”
But soon I can see he doesn’t believe me.
I think of a little girl who once stayed with us. Her plate was always filled with food at our table, but she still reached for more. At one meal, she scooped up a man-sized serving of chili and circled an arm around the big—and only—bag of corn chips, pulling it to her chest. My family gazed at her scramble to have it all.
“How about eating what’s on your plate?” I said, hoping not to embarrass her, making sure a smile lifted my words. “You can always have seconds. And thirds. I’ll make sure you get full.”
But the look on her face told me she didn’t believe me.
The morning glories’ tendrils grasp for more when they have what they need. The little girl snatches another helping when her plate’s already full. But when I choose to live in the future—in the fear of scarcity—so I can’t even see the enough of today, am I so different?
… Be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date
*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.