Orchids

I’d just finished a 6-mile run one muggy Virginia summer day a couple of years ago. If you know the Alleghenies, you know the kind of day I’m talking about. The sky is a washed-out-blue-jeans indigo, thin-strips of white-cotton clouds hiding a low burning sun. That kind of day doesn’t feel hot, but leaves you wringing your arms and legs out within minutes of stepping off the front porch. Yeah, it was that kind of day. And, please, notice, I said I was in the mountains. So, this run was not for the flat-landers. Up and down wooded trails, some paved, some graveled – all grueling. And, as always, my heart had found exhilaration with each footfall.

Now that the labor of love was 6 miles over, I stood in the front yard of my parents’ home wondering, yet again, exactly what it was that I liked about running. Well, I wasn’t standing exactly. My lungs were protesting loudly enough to force me to bend over a bit, gulping down that thick mountain air, as my hamstrings whimpered. I closed my eyes and breathed in and out slowly, then opened my eyes again. And, I was blessed with a gift for the effort. There, in front of me, and yes, I did check at least twice, was a small shaded field of pink-lady slipper orchids, native to the mountain but appearing only occasionally when the conditions are perfect: low light, high moisture, medium heat. (Sort of like fungus and bacteria –ugh!) These orchids were small and beautiful, and I knew I’d been blessed with a little gift from God Himself in discovering them.

I stooped next to the little hidden grotto, smiling and counted the little pink and green faces, each perfect and beautiful in its own way. And I knew that His gift would be incomplete without sharing it with someone else. So, I hopped up and ran (Ugh!) the front steps calling for my parents, excited to pass on the knowledge of the beautiful little flowers.  Then I was blessed to witness my parents wonder and surprise at the bounty hidden in their own yard.

I think that’s mostly how blessings are. They show up silently when the conditions are right, whatever those conditions may be, and they work and wait for us to stop to take notice. Then what we do with those blessings is really up to us, but the true gift in a blessing is being able to share the bounty, handing it on to someone else who may need that very same thing.