I was looking for something on my desk.  This is a major undertaking.  I am a firm believer in the saying, “An uncluttered desk is a sign of an empty mind.”

Well, that wasn’t true.  I don’t believe it at all, but I drag out that excuse every time I need it.  The real excuse is that when juggling many responsibilities, papers and stuff arrive on my desk at times when I just can’t deal with them, and I’ve never arrived at a good mechanism for keeping the piles down to minimal size.  So every once in a while, I slash through a pile, but my desk is a sad story.  Today, though, it disgorged something worthwhile.

Today, I found a poem I copied out as a boy in one of those piles.  The poem was written by someone named Jessie Gordon.  It’s on my desk because I like it now as much as I did as a boy.  So I’m copying it out for you here.

I can’t find anything about Jessie Gordon anywhere on the Internet.  The poem, though, appeared in a book in 1894.  I have a wild-eyed theory 🙂 about Jessie Gordon that I’ll give in my next post, Lord willing.  For now, here is her poem.

ONLY

Only a seed; but it chanced to fall
In a little cleft of a city wall,
And taking root, grew bravely up
Till a tiny blossom crowned its top.

Only a flower; but it chanced that day
That a burdened heart passed by the way;
And the message that through the flower was sent,
Brought the weary soul a sweet content.

For it spake of the lilies so gaily clad,
And the vexed heart grew strangely glad
At the thought of a tender care, over all,
That noted even a sparrow’s fall.

Only a thought, but the work it wrought
Can never by tongue or pen be taught;
For it ran through a life, like a thread of gold,
And the life bore fruit a hundred-fold.

Only a word; but ’twas spoken in love,
With a whispered prayer to the Lord above:
And the angels in Heaven rejoiced once more;
For a new-born soul entered in by “the Door.”

IF, IF, we will stop to be thankful and encouraged by the little things that God gives us to enjoy, like flowers, autumn colour, small joys, THEN we will be reminded of His loving care for us.  And if we let the thought of His loving care for us run through our life it will change us forever.  “We love Him because He first loved us” will become more than a nice Scripture verse, it will become our life — and such a life will bear fruit for all eternity, in prayer and service that leads to saved souls.

Only a seed — but if the burdened heart never paused to look at the flower, never paused to give thanks for the loving God who gave it, always just assumed that the sight of the flower was a right rather than a gift from the God who cares for us, then that burdened heart would never receive the blessing God wanted to give, perhaps never be the blessing God wanted it to be.

Only a seed….