God's love

Dear ones,
I went to a memorial for a 19 month old baby on Saturday. The little boy was the 3rd child of my children's childhood friend, Sarah. We have known Sarah since she was 3. Many memories were shared of long days spent under the 2 trees in my front yard. Days of popcorn and koolaid, games, and plays, and playing "store", "school" and "hospital". My front porch saw alot of business from the neighborhood because our huge trees kept things cool. We knew we had to attend this memorial.
Sarah, and her brother, Mark, were so happy to see our family; and we were so glad to bring some comfort of happier times to them. Their grandparents, our next door neighbors, had been "foster grandparents" to my own two children, until they passed on. When the new neighbors moved in they began digging up all of my friend Ann's beloved roses. I ran out there, and explained in my broken spanish that these were my deceased friends roses. They put sticks in pots for me, and unfortunately, with my brown thumb of death, only one survived. I waited with anticipation to see which of the roses made it. It was a melon orangey color; not my favorite, but still....Ann's legacy. I had just trimmed the bush back a couple of weeks before learning of the memorial for Ann's great grandchild. I thought to take some roses to the memorial. When I checked the bush there were only 3 closed buds on a branch. The memorial was saturday, and I knew they wouldn't open in time, when the night before they were still closed. I said a little prayer and told my grown children I would take the buds and mix them with babies breath the next morning and maybe it would be enough. We almost forgot to check. Brandon remembered, and we went out and here was one of the buds perfectly open just in time! I added babies breath, to the one open blossom and 2 buds; and tied it with white ribbon, and placed it in a pill bottle with water, since the memorial was down in SanClemente. It smelled lovely and looked beautiful, but I felt a little silly at my small offering. I felt I was supposed to take it anyway.
The memorial was beautiful. The pastor spoke at length about God, and then said that God is not in control of this fallen world; if He was, He would be considered a child abuser. I looked at the small melon rose and suddenly I knew that God was indeed in control; even of something so small as forcing a rose to bloom overnite, to be a small comfort for a greiving family. When I gave the rose to Sarah, and told her it was from her grandmothers bush, she was touched and wept with gratitude and said "I have to show my mother, because we have felt my grandmother's presence in these last days so strongly." When she showed her mother, they wept together over the little rose and both exclaimed that it was their favorite color of Ann's roses. I am amazed at God's love. The rose survived to comfort them at this time. I never would have known that years ago when I tried to preserve Ann's roses, and was disapointed that my least favorite color was the only one to survive, that it wasn't meant for me, but for Sarah and her extended family at this difficult time. God knows and loves each and every one of us, and will comfort us in His way. We may not understand why a little boy dies mysteriously, but we can know of His love for us, and take comfort that everything happens for a reason. Our God is in control, and is a loving Father of us all.