“Shalom also to you,” repeated Heidi.

70 A Morning in the Garden

70

A Morning in the Garden

Clouds filled with rain moved north to the Baltic through the night.

The morning dawned the perfect brilliant winter’s day—crisp, bright, with a million sparkling dewdrop diamonds promising to reflect the sun’s rays as soon as it was up.

Baron Heinrich von Dortmann had been out since the moment it thought of being light. He knew a spectacular sunrise was promised, and not even a war had succeeded in diminishing his appreciation for the growing, living, revealing wonders of God’s creation.

He and his wife had walked a small distance into the fields and woods together, praying for the extended and ever-changing family that now dwelt with them. They had returned, and Marion had gone on to the house to help with breakfast preparations, while he had gone to the garden to await the sunrise.

It was there he met his daughter. The baron had taught her well of his ways, for she was on the same errand of Fatherhood discovery as himself.

He came upon her bent over, examining the green frond of a fresh fern that was dripping liquid jewels from the night’s rain. He watched her with the same lively enthusiasm to observe growth in process as she was giving the fern.

When she turned, she evidenced no surprise at seeing him.

“Don’t you simply love it after a rain, Papa?” she asked with almost a solemnity in her voice.

“I do indeed,” returned the baron, also reverently.

“If raindrops are, as you have sometimes said, God’s tears, then surely does a reaping of joy follow them.”

“Perhaps they are tears of his joy,” said the baron, smiling.

“This morning’s surely are,” rejoined Sabina. “Everything is so bright and clean and clear. What a gorgeous day it will be when the sun is up in the sky and making a tiny rainbow of every little pearl.”

Not only did Sabina sound like her father, she had gradually taken on more and more of his countenance as well. As she had matured, a reminder of the baron’s inner stature had deepened in her eyes. Her facial characteristics—skin and cheeks, lips and chin, nose and forehead—had all taken on a greater expressiveness of calm maturity. Truly she was a girl no longer, but fully a woman, and a beautiful one, radiant in the security of her Father’s love.

“I am always filled with wonder that I can look upon these same plants, this fern, all the same flowers, day after day, and never grow weary of them,” she mused.