A Year of Gratitude – July 18, 2024

The garden has so many lessons to teach us. Today, I found my gratitude for the lesson held by this gorgeous lily.

It’s lily season here in our gardens. Thanks to my mom, a true lover of every sort of lily, we have dozens of different varieties of daylilies here in our gardens. Somehow, despite our unending heat and humidity, they have flourished this summer. I don’t remember having this many blooms ever before.

These flowers provide us with beautiful blooms to enjoy during the middle of our summer growing season. They’re so colorful with interesting, so diverse. I don’t love them as much as my mom does, but I do appreciate how fabulous they are.

But back to the lesson. These are daylilies. They have that name for a simple reason. These splendid blooms last a day. Sure, they might last a bit longer than 24 hours, but not much. They aren’t meant to last longer.

So, we have to appreciate them now, in their moment. I can’t decide to wait until the weather is cooler, until I have more time, to go outside and really enjoy them. They’ll be gone. I have to make time to witness them now.

Time is precious. We can’t make more of it and we don’t know exactly how much of it we’ll be given. So, let’s make the most of it, let’s make the space to do the things that bring us joy even if that’s just stepping outside to enjoy these blooms before they’re gone.

This post is part of our A Year of Gratitude Series. You can find the introduction, inspiration, and entire year’s gratitude’s posts here.