Dear Reader:

Look! My “Mr. Lincoln” rose has returned again….this is the best year yet. You might remember I talked about its fragrance being in a category all by itself…and then even ordered from ETSY a bottle that comes pretty darn close to the natural fragrance.

The size of the bottle was nowhere near the size as portrayed in the advertisement (it is tiny)…still it has a lovely fragrance…not quite as powerful as the real rose…but a light subtle imitation of it…perfect for just a faint lovely scent!

I chose the “Lincoln” rose for the title photo and the theme….”Picking our Battles” because I can think of few presidents who had more battles to contend with…personally and politically than President Lincoln.

I think it was all the activities in Conway… remembering the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War… that made me start thinking about the personal battles we all fight on a daily basis.

I know that sometimes the conflicting feelings I have about participating in something I don’t want to or even just making myself do certain things/chores around the house that I keep putting off …is an on-going dilemma. We all fight these mundane battles.

If we are honest most of us realize there is still a streak of competition in us while trying to speed around the shortest way to get the last parking spot at Publix before another car, circling the opposite way, gets there.

Or perhaps it is picking up speed maneuvering the grocery cart in between shoppers down the aisle to the check-out counter first. We know we are being silly but our competitive fighting spirits still kick in on a daily basis. It is only later after I have done something like this that I realize these little battles leave us more exhausted than triumphant by the end of the day.

I imagine even Clebe McClary would agree that history’s greatest warriors didn’t carry guns or try to eliminate the opposition in their race to achieve immortality in life.

Think about just some of the greatest warriors we have known in history: Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Florence Nightingale and Rosa Parks…just to name a few. They chose different “weapons” to win battles…they used words….words like love, hope, inspiration, big ideas, leadership and standing up for what was right.

Without the need for face-paint…don’t we all have the potential within us to be a fighter for the causes that are worth fighting for?

So until tomorrow…Let us go to God in prayer and ask Him to guide us through war zones in our personal lives…showing us where to step and help us choose which battles are the important ones to fight with words or action for the good.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

I have been gone up and down the road so much lately that when I finally got back  to the garden yesterday…some new delights met me.  (* The  insecticide powder is helping fight and keep the “Little Big Red” the geranium protected from hungry insects!)

And Beth Brewer….Look….finally a bloom after over a year. I even put a sign up to encourage it…but nothing has worked. The manettia vine is living…just not blooming.  And then yesterday I spotted it …a teeny tiny speck of orange/red….a little bloom…hopefully it is the start of big things to come…lots and lots of color!

Photos of Beth bringing me the manettia vine from her Uncle Frank’s beautiful yard and of how I long to see those window flower beds outside his home again…still miss that beautiful place of beauty on Marion!

Today….

When I received it…

Hope is still alive Beth! 🙂 🙂 🙂