A Giant Head of Lettuce for Mother’s Day & Learning to be Flexible

We were all set for company last night. The table was set. Lights were on. Music was playing. We had a little fire going in the fire pit off to the side. Appetizers were out and the food was prepped and ready to go inside.

My friend Jeannie was coming for a casual Mother’s Day dinner. Nothing fancy, I told her, just healthy and light. A good weeknight meal.

Jeannie is the one who’s helped us a lot with our yard, sharing plants and dividing bulbs from her yard, and all she wanted for Mother’s Day (when I asked her) was quality time. She’s not big on “stuff.”

And then, of course, we threw in something “earthy” for her gift; something she’d really appreciate.

Jeannie’s Mother’s Day gift was she would be able to cut any head of lettuce from the garden before she left our place.

Seriously, there is nothing like homegrown lettuce, and ’tis the season – in Oregon – for the most buttery, tender lettuce you’ll ever find.

I’ve known Jeannie for 30 years. She’s been more than a mom to me, and I’ll leave it at that. She’s one of the most wonderful women in my life. Here we are sporting our (unplanned) pink pants!

Dinner was prepared inside: Red Lentil and Sweet Potato Stew and a fresh garden salad with shrimp, cilantro, feta cheese, cucumbers, heirloom tomatoes, and avocado. And fresh crunchy warm bread. And dessert that Jeannie brought.

We were just getting ready to sit down in the great outdoors …

And then it happened.

Thunder and lightening. Darkness and pouring down rain.

So we quickly moved the entire table setting and party to the inside.

I was serving a delicious stew recipe anyway, so it felt nice and cozy eating inside rather than outside.

What I love about hospitality is that it doesn’t have to be perfect. You make changes as you go, pick things up and move them. People will cancel on you, and unordinary things sometimes take place, but you learn to go with the flow.

And it all works out in the end. And that’s one thing I’ve learned from Jeannie over the years, to bend and be flexible.

I’ve shared this before, and I think it’s time to share it again:

Many of us are crippled from birth. The backbone of our standard for living comes fused into unyielding rules and regulations. We are rigid in our determination to control life’s course and outcome.

We’re sure, for example, how people ought to look, behave, and respond. Things have to be done a certain way – our way. Then real life sneaks up and whacks us from behind, seeking to break our unbending back and our stiff neck, threatening to paralyze us.

There is a cure. We are offered opportunity to exercise the suppleness of godly grace and perspective. Each time life throws us a punch, we can do a deep-knee bend, forcing our muscles of faith, hope and understanding to stretch.

Eventually that brittle backbone will grow strong and supple, bending with the rhythms of grace, yet standing tall and firm in the face of compromise.

All of this requires considerable daily “give.” Such give is not a one-time choice but a lifestyle of generosity, spontaneity, and openness to truth.

How often I have thought that if I could give just one gift to my children, it would be the golden gift of flexibility.  —(Susan L. Lenzkes)

As the night came to a close, Jeannie went to the garden, in the rain, and cut herself a nice big head of lettuce to take home with her. (Top photo)

Thank you, Jeannie, for the gifts you’ve taught and given to me in life!

How do you handle situations where you have to make a quick change? Have you learned the gift of being flexible?