Love, Joy and Peas: magnolia

Sunday, March 10, 2013

First Magnolia Blooms of the Year!

Today I had the joy of seeing my first magnolia blooms of the year. With bright blue skies and mild temperatures, it already feels like spring here in the Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area. My favorite of today's magnolia photos is the macro above.

I also love this photo of a pink magnolia bloom unfurling from its catkin.

Here's an overview shot of the magnolia tree. I love magnolia blooms, but what I love even more is enjoying God's amazing creation. May God bless you this spring and always, dear friend!

Thursday, February 23, 2012

First Magnolia & Ajuga in the Grass

First magnolia sighting of 2012

God blessed me with a wonderful day today! Had a productive home blessing day, saw my first magnolia blooms of this calendar year and had a nice long talk with an uplifting Christian friend.

Ajuga in our lawn

Last year I noticed some ajuga in our not so grassy lawn. I fully intended to dig it up and transplant it into some of our flower beds. It would make the beds look nicer and save the ajuga from getting mowed down every week during the growing season. Clearly, this never happened. But today when I noticed the ajuga in the grass again I realized that the ajuga is just like parts of our character. Like this beautiful flower getting choked out by grass sometimes our beautiful character getting choked out by things that distract us from our most important goals and values. Even more so than the hardy ajuga, human beings are resilient and can bounce back from a lot of hard knocks and distractions. But when we heed our soul's call to be what God has truly called us to be and focus on loving Him and loving our fellow human beings, our souls sing and our beauty shines. I pray that you and I will learn to do more of what makes our hearts sing and reflects our priorities. May God bless you!