Excerpted Inspirations #72Linda Odhner, with photos by Liz KufsApr 11, 20230 min readUpdated: Feb 10, 2025
![[Cousin Kate from Budapest, visiting her country relatives, has planted a flower garden for the first time.] She was very conscientious about watering her garden. Every morning before sunrise, every evening after the sun went down, Mother often found her flat on her stomach, "waiting for the flowers to come up." Days passed, sunny days, rainy days. Then one day Kate roused the household, crying at the top of her voice: "Auntie-e-e! Uncle! Jancsi! Come quick!" They came running from all directions, Mother from the kitchen, Father from the stables, Jancsi from the cow-barn. "Where is she? What happened?" Kate was kneeling in her garden, waving her hands, yelling for all she was worth: "Look! Look what happened!" They looked. The black soil she had tended so carefully showed the first promise of a future garden. Tiny seedlings, hardly visible, were pushing up bravely. "Phoo!" cried Jancsi when he understood that he had been brought here just to look at seedlings. "A person would think that something wonderful had happened. And here you raise all this fuss for a few seedlings. Seedlings!" "You know, Jancsi, I think something wonderful has happened," said Father thoughtfully. "It's such an everyday story to us. We know that seeds will grow into plants. But how? Why? To Kate it's a miracle -- and so it is. Look at those tiny seedlings. See how they struggle through heavy clumps of earth to reach the light and sun. We are so used to it that we take it for granted, instead of getting on our knees to thank the Lord for another gift." Kate Seredy, The Good Master (1935), pp. 89-90](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6feacf_1602086a01c843e384e951ebbff8f17b~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_686,h_830,al_c,q_85,enc_avif,quality_auto/6feacf_1602086a01c843e384e951ebbff8f17b~mv2.jpg)
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