For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. Romans 15:4

​The same weed I fight in my garden blooms like morning glories along the dry country roads I run. Bindweed is almost impossible to eradicate here in Kansas. It's roots can reach twenty feet deep. It snaps off when I try to pull it and efforts to tame it only serve to encourage more vigorous growth. It can be frustrating.

Yet it can be so pretty. July was dry here. We only got about two inches of rain, and that came late in the month. The lawn yellowed. The dirt roads cracked. But the bindweed reached out from the ditches and up rustic fences and spread across dusty roads and blossomed.

Sometimes I'm overwhelmed by the Bible. Sometimes I'm frustrated by the way the Bible convicts me. Sometimes I want to pluck out the challenging verses. Jesus, him I want to sit down with on a hot day and share a lemonade. The Book of Job? Well, it scares me. My heart doesn't yearn to dig into Job the way it rests in a garden of purple coneflowers or in a good Psalm. Or in Jesus.

But, oh, how the Word can deliver hope on an emotionally parched day. The more I read it and listen to it and study it with our women's church group the deeper it roots within me.

The whole of the Bible, it's not an easy thing. It's not all lilies and gentle lambs. It isn't generally popular. It is the firm truth to rely upon beyond emotion, though. It can be a living thing within us that thrives under any and all circumstances. The help we can call upon in times of uncertainty, grief, and need. We can count on its wisdom and comfort and holiness.

My challenge is to prioritize quiet time immersed in the Word. We must schedule it every day and be consistent. Get into a good Bible study with fellow believers. Read the Word out loud. Wrestle with it. Marvel at it. Let it spread rest over you when you are weary and all other language fails.

A good resource for starting a Bible reading plan is YouVersion, which is available on the web and as a phone app.

There's a good sermon in eating an ice cream drumstick while driving on country roads in search of sweet rocket wildflowers. Wild purple sweet rocket blooms here in Kansas along creek beds and tucked in the shade of trees. It spreads where it's happy and can blanket whole creek beds or cottage gardens. You can smell the deep floral aroma driving by with the windows down.

It's like the blossoms preach. Fragrant purple preachers exalting the glory of God. Rising up out of the rains to remind us to stop and see the wonders and the beauty of God's creation. To pause, to see, to smell. To be in relationship with the Creator.

Imagine, God creates a seed, plants it, and makes it grow with the help of his rain and his light. He is with the wildflower and he is with each of us. I can go to him in prayer and simply talk to him. And you can do the same. He is everywhere. He is.

Then there's the wonderful transition between the last fading spring sweet rockets and the first lightning bugs of summer speckling the woods across the street from my front porch. I like to sit out on the front step as the evening light fades and watch for sparks of light. They begin across the street, in the woods. Then come closer. Sometimes right up to the porch. The neighbors' little granddaughter calls them "bug lights". That's perfect.

Sometimes my mom sits with me on the front step and we watch bug lights together. She said I ought to write about them because we are to be Jesus's lights. And I like that idea of being bug lights for Jesus. Not in the unpleasant mosquito bug like way. In the way of a gently floating light giving the serenity of pause, the serenity of being with God.

I admit I'm not sure how to do that, how to be a bug light for Jesus. I also admit it sounds weird. That's okay. We strive. That is what we do each day. We get into the Word and its truth glows. And we embrace being weird in order to share the peace of flowers and light. The peace of Jesus.

Anna Hosanna the little wren wakes up singing praises and goes to sleep singing praises. Anna moved into the ornamental birdhouse outside my bedroom window. She sings praises from her rooftop and from the fence below. Overlooking the cottage garden of iris and peony, she sings. In the rain, she sings.

She comes closer and closer to us encouraging us to move along if we fuss too long in the garden near her little ones. Fearlessly protective of her family. Fearless of voice.

Her front porch is weathered from the prairie winter and her house rocks in the prairie winds, but Anna Hosanna rejoices. Her whole body is into it. Head thrown back and beak wide. Her psalms throaty and cheerful.

Anna Hosanna the little bird knows what we each should know.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Phillippians 4:4