Tu-lips Sink Ships

Yellow has always been my favorite color. And as I got older—red. So, I fluctuate between yellow and red. No other colors come close.

As I was walking through my neighborhood one afternoon, when I was about seven or eight years old, I spotted a flower bed full of the most gorgeous yellow tulips I had ever seen. It was bad enough that yellow was my favorite color but a double-whammy—tulips were my favorite flower. I stared at this flower bed thinking, “I sure would love to have some of those flowers.”

Should I pick those tulips?

They don't belong to me!

Wouldn’t that be stealing?

Surely it would be okay, right?

Who's going to stop me?!?!

So, without giving it another thought I reach down to pick me some of the largest, brightest tulips in the flower bed. As I was gathering the tulips to make a beautiful bouquet...

I stood up, turned around, and there... standing in the doorway of the house... was the lady who had painstakingly planted and nurtured those tulips!

“Oh my goodness. I'm caught,” I thought. I could feel my face turn red because I was so embarrassed that I had been caught. “Will she go to my house and let my mama know what I had done?” I said to myself.

I just stood there—frozen.

She was staring at me and she was NOT smiling.

I was staring back at her. “What do I do? Should I just take off running?” I thought.

After we stood there staring at each other for what seemed like 10 minutes, the lady broke out in a smile!

Whew! I thought she was going to kill me!

Instead, she told me that since I'd already picked those tulips that it was okay for me to keep them. But I was never to do that again. “Yes ma'am,” I said as I scurried toward home.

All I could think about was what if she had told my mother what had I done?!?! My mother would have been too so disappointed in me. I was already disappointed in myself. What was I thinking?

A few days later, my dad was going up to work and asked if I wanted to ride with him. He made rounds to collect for the company where he worked. “Wow, that sounds fun! Yes, sir. I would love to go,” I said. So, I hopped in the car and off we went.

My dad told me that I would have to sit in the car while he met with his clients and that was okay with me. He was in this one particular house for a good while, then I spotted him walking toward the car. In his hands, he had the most gorgeous yellow tulips I'd ever seen. He got in the car, turned toward me and said, “The lady in the house just sent these to you!” I took the tulips—so pretty—I thought, but how did she know tulips were my favorite flowers or that yellow was my favorite color?

So I put the Tulips on the seat next to me and stared at them the whole way home.

Hmmm… even at my young age, all I could think about was the flowers that I had stolen out of the flower bed. How is it that I was “given” yellow tulips. Was it God's way of reminding me about what I had done? Well, if it was—it worked! Never again did I even think about stealing flowers.

It's funny how we learn valuable lessons as children and those lessons remain with us the rest of our lives. As parents, we hope we have instilled those same values in our own children and our children turn out to be fine upstanding citizens.

Oh, by the way—I work in a florist shop. And we still sell tulips—yellow tulips!

~ Jeannie Joyner