Lingering

I'm especially fond of a saying engraved on a resting bench at the University of Idaho (Moscow) arboretum:

The fragrance always remains in the hand that gives the rose.

When I “googled” it to find its author, I found décor sites offering plaques and other items with the quote. But I couldn’t find a definitive word of its author other than a quick reference to a mystic in an Eastern religion.

I still like it, because it says in metaphor what the Bible says in plain words: that when you reach out to people in encouragement and help, you bless them as well as yourself. Some of the verses that express that truth:

A generous man will proper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed. (Proverbs 11:25)

One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. (Proverbs 11:24)

It is more blessed to give than to receive. (Acts 20:35, Paul, quoting Jesus)

If you had “all day,” I could tell you many stories of people who have given me the “rose” of encouragement and help.  Some that come to the top right now are associated with the tough mouths of recovery after I broke my ankle when I fell down some icy stairs. The timing was awful: my mother-in-law was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. We were taking her meals, helping with housework, supervising laundry, and of course had taken away her car keys.  She needed me just to function.

Then PLOP. My life reduced to days of pain and disability in the recliner. Meals came in.  Someone brought ice packs I could refreeze. Another picked up stamps and mailed packages for me. My closest friend determined to “be there” (for safety) the mornings I maneuvered onto a shower bench to bathe and wash my hair. When I went from a hard cast to a take-off cast, she knelt before me, helped shave my healing leg and trim my toenails. It was such a humble, touching time. I cried. In a few years I would be doing similar things for my mother-in-law as she lost control of bodily functions and could no longer feed herself. But the “fragrance remained” as I recalled how caring friends helped me in my “temporary disability.”

This saying is not about handing somebody a bouquet purchased at the local grocery store (though I’ve done that, too). It’s about giving something you cannot be repaid for. It’s about being the hands and feet of Christ in whatever tasks He puts before us. The “fragrance remains” because it is His.