By Mark Hopper

My wife and I try to go for a walk every day. Sometimes we walk through a park but most of the time we simply walk through our neighborhood. We enjoy greeting other people walking along the streets and sidewalks. We also like to see the different houses along the way and admire the lawns and landscaping.

We have noticed more and more people have removed their lawns and installed artificial grass. It looks very nice and doesn’t require a lot of water or work to maintain. Other homeowners have replaced their lawns with crushed granite and desert succulent plants. These look very nice too.

However the thing that really caught our attention this spring is the number of neighbors who have roses blooming in their yards. I never really noticed how many homes had roses. There are an endless variety of roses with different colors and the blossoms which seem to be unusually large this year. Some of them are huge.

The rose bushes have dark green leaves and look very healthy. We think it may be the result of the heavy rains we had this winter. The precipitation must have enriched the soil and produced a bumper crop of beautiful roses.

One day as we were walking we saw a woman trimming back some of her bountiful rose bushes. We slowed to admire them and commented on how wonderful they looked. The woman said she appreciated our words and promptly gave us a handful of fresh cut flowers.

We carried those with us on the rest of our walk and then put them into a vase when we got home. I am looking at these beautiful flowers in our family room as I type this story. It has been amazing to see how large the blossoms have become and the colors are spectacular. We are thinking about going back and asking for more on our next walk!

There is a verse in the Bible that reminds us God created the heavens and the earth. He created an endless variety of plants, animals, sea creatures and birds for us to observe and enjoy (Genesis Chapter One). Let me encourage you to stop and smell and enjoy the roses in your neighborhood this spring. You may want to plant some at your house too. You will be glad you did and your neighbors will too.

Read 365 more stories and articles (one for every day of the year) in his second book Let me Encourage You More by Mark Hopper. It is now available for only $25 plus postage ($5) – Order  your copy at mark@efreedb.org.