Lily of the Valley
Tangled among sharp nettles, amid barley prickles and darkened, dry grass lay a long-forgotten lily -- soft, brilliant, pure, touched with dew, thirsty with hope, and stained with sorrow.
He shoved his sleeve above his elbow, thrust his bare hand through the mire of thorns, grasped the lily gently between hardened, calloused fingers, and tugged at its satin-soft petals until it was free.
Long forlorn and quite forgotten, the lily was torn and tinged with brown.
Laid in a crystal vase filled with sweetened water, she was drenched with anticipation, filled with nourishment, tinted creamy pale by the sun streaming through his windowpane.
Soon blossoms cascaded down her branches. Tears welled up in his eyes. Immersed in pure joy, innocent love, and touched with fresh clarity, a song was born of her distant sorrow. It traveled for miles, floating across the sea, over mountains, hills, and valleys until, gathering speed and power from the light above, the song reached the moistened clouds, the shimmering stars, the milky host of Heaven above.
He heard it and was enraptured. Adding angelic voices and thundering echoes of heavenly instruments, all sorrow was swept from the song, leaving only delight.
The lily burst forth into searing beauty. Pure, white, soft, delicate, fragile, her moment had come. Bursting with fragrance, dampened with dew, she leaped from the soil and landed in His arms, to rest forever in peaceful surrender.
She nestled snugly upon his breast and felt the comforting pounding of His strong heart, beating only for her as for the thousands who came before.
And she was forever changed.
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