All along the trail the flowers are plentiful. Even early on the trail, before there were leaves on the trees there were flowers on the ground. Bluets are delicate little flowers, blue like their name. Trout lilies are yellow flowers with spots resembling spots on a trout. The Dwarf Iris is just that, a little Iris and they have a purple blossom. One of the earliest flowers we saw and one that was impressive because of the way they covered the ground was the Spring Beauty. Several times they looked like snow on the ground.
One of Jen's favorites was the Lady Slipper. “I have heard of them all my life but this is the first one I have ever seen” she said as we looked at the pinkish red blossom. Another favorite was the Trilliam, we saw white, yellow, pink, and blue ones. The red ones have a different name though they are the same flower.
Hiking for long distances and long time allows the mind to go anywhere. Jen chose to use much of her time and her love of flowers to pray for our family. When she saw a Bluet, she prayed for our daughter Amy. When she saw a yellow flower she prayed for our son Josh who was overseas in the war zone. His wife Krista was prayed for when there was a purple flower, and our Grandson's prayer flowers were the white ones. Our son Nathan and his wife Amy were prayed for when she saw ferns.
Between the hikes, from last year to this, Jen found out that her friend Barbara has breast cancer. The most abundant plant on the trail has been the Rhododendrun. From Georgia to Central Virginia there have been Rhododendrun everywhere. So Jen decided that Barbs prayer plant would be the rhododendrun. In addition to being abundant they were tough plants growing in a difficult environment, a perfect environment to pray for Barb.
We were always ahead of the flowering rhododendrun however. We had not seen one in bloom, until today. Not far up the trail we crested a hill and there on both sides of the trail and into the woods as far as we could see, the rhododendrun was in bloom. It was beautiful. Rhodendrun blossoms look to be about the size of a softball, but when you look at them closely you see that they are made up of a cluster of much smaller blossoms.
This is when Jen told us about rhododendrun being Barb's flower. So after a few minutes hiking in the middle of flowering rhododendrun we stopped. We decided that maybe this was a day Barb was in need of our prayer, so we prayed for her and Pete. Then we dedicated the hike on this day to Barbara Straker. It became Barb's day.
Keep on Barb, we are with you.
