In Ephesians 1:13-14 Paul speaks of that Spirit of promise which is the ernest of our inheritance. I knew a lady once who lived in Nebraska. She was old, in her ninties, and suffered from several dibilitating diseases. She couldn’t hear well, and her eyes were cloudy. In her front yard she had a flower garden, and in her flower garden she had a naked lady lily plant. The naked lady lily only blooms once every four years, and at that time it was soon to bloom. She had been waiting for several years and soon the lily would bloom. Sometime during the fall of that year, she passed away, and on the day she passed away, the naked lady lily bloomed.

I was asked to write a poem for the family of that dear lady. As I thought about what the lily had meant to her, I was reminded of the passage in Ephesians. This story is about the hope of a promise, and promise from God that the lily would bloom. She had waited with great anticipation for the lily to bloom, and though she did not live to see it, God kept His promise. The naked lady lily in her front yard was not the only Lily she had longed to see. Ever since she was a child she had looked for the day when she would be with Christ. You might think that the blooming of the lily on the day of her death was a tradgedy, but I think that day was the best day of her life. God had something so much better for her, instead of a naked lady lily, she saw The Lilly of the Valley.

The Naked Lady Lily is about that promise, and that hope.