It was my last semester at Saint Paul School of Theology. Mom had just been released from the hospital after suffering a debilitating heart attack. Now, in addition to being the single parent of two young daughters and a full time student, I was the primary care giver for the very woman who had always been my primary support.

Early one spring morning, I woke up and discovered that the entire metropolitan area was blanketed in snow. As luck would have it, the public schools were cancelled but my classes were not! So, after arranging for childcare, I began the journey across town. Traffic went from slow to snarled to not moving at all!

It was the proverbial last straw for my sleep-deprived body. Sitting in a car on I-35 in the middle of Kansas City, I began railing against God. If this is what you want me to do, why is everything going so wrong? There are too many problems. I can't go on. The whole situation is impossible!

In the midst of the tirade, I looked out the car window. There in the median, with snow and ice covering everything, a single yellow daisy was blooming. How did it get there? How had it survived? More importantly, didn't it know daisies aren't early bloomers? This is impossible!

But there it was anyway! Believe it or not, that daisy continued to bloom in the middle of I-35 for over a week. It was splashed by salt and sand, choked by exhaust fumes, and ignored by the majority of travelers who passed by it each day. Yet, despite it all, that daisy did the impossible.

The daisy . . . it was a miracle. And, because it could survive the impossible, it seemed as though God was telling me I could do the same.

That was almost twenty years ago. My daughters are now grown with lives of their own. Four years after the snowfall, on a beautiful autumn afternoon, Mom died in the basement of the church serving the God she loved and the Savior she trusted. There have been moments when it all seemed so overwhelming. But when I have wanted to give up . . . when I have wanted to tell God how impossible it would be to continue . . . I have always remembered a bright yellow daisy that once bloomed in the snow on I-35!

Impossible? Not really! After all, nothing is impossible for God. And, paraphrasing Jesus, if God cares for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field (or the daisy of the median), just think of how much more we are cared for . . . how much more we are loved.

Does the road ahead of you seem impossible? Are you ready to call it quits? Or are you certain the future of Christ's Church seems dark and daunting? If so, may I offer you a bright yellow daisy . . . and all the love of God's own heart?

To God be the Glory!

See You in Church,

Pastor Kathleen