Ms. Fancy Dress
Here comes Ms. Fancy Dress.
She’s today’s garden guest.
She’s invited herself for afternoon tea.
She comes because this tea party is free.
Wearing an eye-catching floating gown
this afternoon she’s seen waltzing round and round.
She sips pink lemonade tea first. Delightful!
Does she know its Latin name? Echinacea.
Purple cone flower is its common name.
Ms. Fancy Dress sips from its disc frame.
She sips from one, then another
as her gossamer wings flutter.
Then orange juice tea attracts her attention
at this mid-summer afternoon luncheon.
This tea is really turk’s cap lilies.
Soon she becomes quite silly.
She’s seen hanging upside down
covered with orange pollen.
Next, lavender garden phlox is quietly sipped
as her long feeding tube unerringly dips,
but she seems to like pink lemonade the best
as she shares with other tea-drinking garden guests.
They’re her friends the bees,
here for afternoon tea.
Just who is Ms. Fancy Dress?
Who is this welcome garden guest?
A yellow dress with black dots and stripes and a blue ruffled hem,
to see her waltz in my ballroom always attracts my attention.
No fashion designer or seamstress the world over
could come up with these coordinates of color.
Too soon her belly is filled.
For a few minutes I was thrilled
to visit with my garden guest.
There she goes, Ms. Fancy Dress.
She’s a yellow swallowtail
who waltzes about in this tale.
* * * * *
Oh the poise of Ms. Fancy Dress as she waltzes about.
Even if a gossamer wing is torn, she still gallivants.
Though her God-given mission
is for pollination
she attracts much attention
from gardeners and children.
As if not a care in the world,
she seems to reduce worries that whirl.
Her agility and grace
brings smiles to many a face.
Her buoyancy exhibits
lightness of spirit.
She’s not weighed down with the cares of this world,
trusting in her Creator her needs are upheld.
She brightens many a day
with her cheerful, carefree ways.
If life is a dance,
her waltz will enchant.
This lightness of spirit is also available to us
through believing faith as we choose to live a life of trust.
Life has many worries that tend to get us down,
forgetting God’s faithfulness and leaving behind a frown,
but God has a solution for worry
or a feeling of anxiety.
It’s “cast all your anxiety upon Him because He cares for you.”
Yes, seeking God in prayer is the antidote for what worries you.
If you’re at all familiar with the Psalms,
you’ll realize that David prayed often -
in thankfulness
and in distress...
when victorious or at wit’s end;
when pursued by enemies without end.
Rather these enemies were physical,
emotional, or irrational,
David knew one remedy for anxiety was to offer praise to God at all times.
Praising God focuses on God’s loving kindness allowing God’s faithfulness to shine.
Through life’s various surprise twists and turns,
disappointments, not knowing which way to turn,
let prayer bring you needed peace and comfort,
healing emotional and physical hurts.
God hears our heart’s cry when we pray,
even when we don’t know what to say.
In him we live and move and have our being.
As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
Acts 17:28
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
I Peter 5:7
Do not be anxious about anything,
but in everything, by prayer and petition,
with thanksgiving,
present your requests to God.
And the peace of God,
which transcends all understanding,
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7
The Spirit helps us in our weakness.
We do not know what we ought to pray for,
but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.
And he who searches our hearts
knows the mind of the Spirit,
because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.
Romans 8:26-27
For everything that was written in the past
was written to teach us,
so that through endurance
and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
Romans 15:4
Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the heights above.
Praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his heavenly hosts.
Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars.
Praise him, you highest heavens
and you waters above the skies.
Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for he commanded and they were created.
He set them in place for ever and ever...
Praise the Lord from the earth
you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,
lightning and hail, snow and clouds, storm winds that do his bidding,
you mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars,
wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds,
kings of the earth and all nations, you princes and all rulers on earth,
you men and maidens, old men and children.
Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for his name alone is exalted;
his splendor is above the earth and the heavens.
Psalm 148
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