Desert Flower

from the ReachAcross U.S. Director

I asked my Saudi Arabian language partner to come up with a sentence that we could use to work on some pronunciation. He thought a little, and then said (after grammar corrections): ‘I don’t have any American friends.’ ‘A sad commentary,’ I thought. ‘Here we are, sent out into the world, and we’re too scared—or comfortable—or, whatever—to go to them. So God sends them to us, and we’re too—what? Busy? Intimidated?’ Or maybe it just seems too hard, too little promise of immediate success? Perhaps we prefer ‘feel-good’ ministries to obedience?

I have to admit, that’s what I thought when the founder of our mission visited me in Bible College over forty years ago. ‘I’d never go with that group,’ I was thinking at the time. I wanted to be someplace that I could see results. Muslims weren’t known to be very receptive to the Good News back then.

They still aren’t, but in places, the hard ground of Islam is opening to the Word. And as ‘Hope’ (a worker from another agency who served alongside one of our workers on the Horn of Africa) puts it in her poem below!

The Desert Flower Is the Most Glorious of All

Sometimes I feel like I am growing flowers in the desert.
Scraping at sand, dryer than dried by years
of desert wind and no rain.
No rainclouds, no smell of rain, nor all the growth it brings
Nothing but deceivingly blue sunny sky,
Of the world and its pleasures
Of life without rain.
But only sunshine is a trick, blinding the eyes
Slowly burning the skin, which eyes blind do not see
Unless healed and opened again

Some days, too many days, I hate life in the desert.
Scraping at sand, with nothing to show but
blistered hands, and there’s no rain.
I remember what I knew, I loved life in the valley
Fertile and green and everywhere flowers
To sit amidst their friendship
And talk of the rain
But only comfort is a trap, softening hands
And there are lessons only learned in the desert
To believe in the rain when it never comes

Somehow, then, I am a rain-giver, here in this desert
Scraping at sand, looking for moments in which
to plant a seed, and pray for the rain.
This all I have, a lacking offering, and weak in its faith
But strong is the arm of the Hearer
And all that is dead may live again
The desert sing with rain
So in hope, today’s grace, I’ll stay here in this sand
For all who once were, now know: the desert flower,
Grown of grace, is the most glorious of all.