where the happily-ever-after grows

The lady at the farmer’s market had a table filled with rosemary and thyme to plant, lettuces for salad, white onion flowers and pinkish-purple garlic flowers.

“The petals can be used, too,” she said, offering a blossom for me to pinch one off to taste.

The flavor was more subtle, softer. I was sold.

They found their way onto Sunday morning sunny-side eggs with parmesan. Later in the week, it added flavor to steamed chard with asiago cheese and shrimp. Even later, it found its way into dill dip.

The bloom doesn’t wither like a dahlia – the garlic flower is durable, seemingly determined to last in the daily, the character of it adding something to this happily-ever-after.

St. Augustine said that the only difference between the pagan and the Christian is not the challenges they face – because they both face the same challenges – but how they face those challenges.

Let your hope make you glad. Be patient in time of trouble and never stop praying (Romans 12:12)

Living out our hope in God means we need to live hope like we believe it.

The secret to happily-ever-after? It’s a choice – an attitude choice – as simple as choosing 5 tiny petals to sprinkle over a sunny-side up egg.

Fairy-tales contain wonderful life lessons – of choices in the challenges that result in a happily-ever-after. I bet because they discovered the importance of choices – that when new challenges came up, they had the durable character to continue making the choices – choices that create happily-ever-after in the daily.

. . . . choices like forgiveness in a broken moment, to love despite the harshness of an argument, to not give up – ever, to search out, find and open the love letters sent to us in the daily

. . . . love letters written in the coo of a turtle dove on a roof-top, the call of a cardinal or perseverance of a red-bird hopping through the garden searching for worms

. . . . in the warmth of water after the water-heater broke and was replaced, in the sounds of raindrops on a porch roof and blue hydrangeas blooming that we thought lost after the great challenge a few years ago

. . . . in the giggles of a granddaughter chattering about happy birthdays – cakes, candles, red strawberries in a bowl, lit candles and her daddy and uncles celebrating birthdays

‘. . . . happily-ever-after in the after-birthday party mess comes in choosing to focus on the smiles, the happiness in a previous moment – the brotherhood in its more perfect form

. . . . the hope in the wait of a prayer sent out, in moments where we feel unseen, in the cracking-moments of our heart – the happily-ever-after is there just waiting to be chosen.

The heroine in all of us need a place to grow some peace, some joy that we can pull from, like a garlic flower – to change our attitude in not only how we live the daily but how we see the daily.

He has left attitude-changes all around us. It is our choice to use them to create a happily-ever-after.

A flower, even a garlic flower, stuck in a glass of water – is like staking a claim to hope, claiming victory in faith.

It’s in the seemingly insignificant of the daily that the happily-ever-after grows. It’s not an arriving thing. It’s an ever-growing thing – this choosing how we see the moments in our day. Maybe happily-ever-after is as simple as attitude choice? As simple as pulling petals from a garlic flower to sprinkle on a sunny-side-up egg.

I want it to be said that I lived happily ever after – not because every moment was perfect – but because I chose to see it that way.