Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Garden (09/07/06)
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TITLE: Just for Jonsey | Previous Challenge Entry
By Justin Atkin
09/12/06 -
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I have often heard my mother tell stories of when she was a child. One story that has always stood out in my mind, took place right off this dirt road. In the words of my mother the story goes:
“A favorite childhood memory was picking wild flowers with my aunt. On Sunday afternoons we would gather at Pa Pearman’s house for an afternoon of rest and just being together with our families. Sometimes during those gatherings, my aunt would take me for a walk and we would pick flowers along the way. We could always find the most beautiful flowers blooming in the yard of an old abandoned home place that was just down the dirt road from my Pa Pa’s house. All my life I had heard the shade tree conversations of the misfortune and tragedies of the family that lived in the house, now falling down with age. You could see old fabric still hanging from the windows and pieces of old furniture through the openings that once were doorways.
As a child, I often stood there thinking of the stories I’d heard and I would try to picture the lady that lived there. My heart seemed to break, thinking of how she might have felt. I also wondered, seeing things through the eyes of a child, how such beautiful flowers could grow there in what seemed to me an unhappy place?
Looking back now, many years later as a grown up I can answer that question. God was revealing Himself to her. He was letting her know that even in the darkest of times, He was with her. He was her light at the end of the tunnel and strength to face the day. She could just look out her window and see the amazing hand of God. She could always join Him in her garden of wild flowers sown by the Master’s hand.”
The lady my mother spoke of was Jonsey. Jonsey had lived a sad life. Her husband had given her a life of alcoholism, abuse, and even murdered their ill newborn. I had always heard the story of Jonsey, so one day I decided to take that left out of my driveway. I turned on that old dirt road in which our family still lives. I crossed the old bridge and then pulled my car over. I walked a few hundred yards through the thicket and there it was, the very spot where all this misery had taken place. No longer did the old fabric hang in the window though. There was no furniture. The little two-room house was no longer there. All that stood was the chimney, rock steps, and the foundation. Not only was the house gone, so was the beautiful flowers that my mother had spoken of so many times. With an eerie feeling and a lot of disappointment I left Jonsey’s place.
It never ceases to amaze me that God pays attention to every detail in our lives. That trip to Jonsey’s place made me wonder why the flowers don’t grow anymore. But then I realized something. I didn’t really need to see that garden. It was just for Jonsey.
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