The Post Office - Remember the Lilies

Bills were due, receipts were low. I had just enough cash to buy a roll of stamps. My plan was to send out kind reminders to the past due accounts and then pray - hard - that the money would come in before my creditors cut me off.

Owning my own business was nothing like I thought it would be. I hadn't realized I would have two sets of bills to pay, personal and business. It was a tight wire act balancing the two, and too often I relied on the day's cash receipts to buy gas and groceries.  Business was good, that wasn't the issue. The shop was making money, sadly most of it was on the books, in the past due accounts.

I hated handling collections and procrastinated until I was nearly bankrupt. Either I mailed out the notices and made follow up phone calls, or lose the business. Neither choice was a pleasant prospect, but the first was definitely the better of the two.

At the Post Office, the teller asked what type of stamps I wanted: The Statue of Liberty or something else. I replied I really didn’t care, stamps were stamps. I wrote out the check and handed it to him.

He glanced at the business name. Printed below were the words, “Say It with Flowers.”

“Say It with Flowers?”

“Yes, my bank thought it a good idea since I own a flower shop.”

“Well, in that case, I think you need lilies.”

I laughed all the way back to the shop.

The mailman had come while I was out. There was not a single bill among the pile of envelopes. They were all receipts. 

Remember the Lilies - do not be solicitous for what you shall wear, what you shall drink or what you shall eat...Consider the lilies of the field, not even Solomon in all of his glory was arraigned as one of these, and if God clothes the grass that is here today and gone tomorrow, how much more you, Oh ye of little faith?