I've always loved naming things. When I was younger I wanted like, 16 children simply because I had so many names that I loved and wanted to use! (Haha, NOT a good reason to have kids, I know this.) The difficulty with this page was deciding on a name that fit. For the longest time it was Tender Arms, a name I love because I think it summed up a great deal about the purpose of this blog, which is generally showing that the family should be a nurturing, gentle place of grace for both the children and the parents to grow and learn. I believe it reflected my beliefs about God as our Father as well (which makes sense, since I obviously want to parent in a Godly fashion.) A couple reasons I changed it to Loving Petunias are #1) Tender Arms sounded a lot like Arms of Love (Family Fellowship) which is a wonderful website dedicated to gentle Christian parenting, but I didn't want to seem to be copying -this is a blog for my own thoughts and experiences, bringing me to #2) Although I try to focus on thoughts surrounding servant leadership and parenting, I also throw in a lot of my own poetry, stories from our family life, recipes, crafts, etc. So a less "specific" name for the blog seemed logical so as not confuse others. I thought about calling it The Sojourning Mama for the idea of the journey of parenthood, Bohemama for my style... Among others, but I settled on loving Petunias.
I never really liked petunias. I love gardens and flowers, but I have always preferred flowers that are hardy, that come back each year and don't need to much care to thrive. So when we went to look for flowers for my balcony boxes this Spring and were met with rows and rows, boxes upon boxes of silly, frilly, floppy petunias, I mentally wrinkled my nose. We had been out of the country visiting my family until late spring, now we were back and this was all they had left. Not even a stray geranium.
My husband assured me they'd look lovely on our balcony, so we took home several and despite myself I enjoyed picking out the colors. My there were a lot to chose from! Light, fairy pinks, floaty purples, royal blues, reds, peaches, stripey candy cane looking ones... Long story short, I've grown to love the little buggers. I've received several compliments, many from complete strangers on the street below, about the pretty balcony, how it blesses them to walk past each morning -one girl even said it was the highlight of her morning to walk under that balcony to work and she looks forward to it each day! What an unexpected joy to bless others in that way and to have an "in" into conversation with others whom I probably wouldn't have met otherwise. How God uses even the little things! Fall is upon us now and my petunias are starting to fade and it feels like saying goodbye to old friends.
What does all that have to do with the name of this blog? Well, life is both delicate and strong and there is beauty in both. Sometimes you need to take a second look, dig deeper, give things a second chance. Sometimes you just need to trust. Sometimes things surprise you and turn out to be stronger, more beautiful than you ever imagined. And that sentiment has everything to do with parenting our littles and going through this life with them.
May you take joy away with you today, in all the little, all the big, both the delicate and the strong!
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