Impatient

We have a mostly shady backyard. I am limited to planting flowers that thrive in shade. The most common, colorful annual is the impatient. I wonder why it is called that? Anyway, it's been a cool spring. Everytime I contemplate a trip to the nursery to get my impatients the weatherman threatens too cool overnights. Not fun to cover all the flowers. I was getting impatient. Yesterday was the last day of May. Certainly I can put in my delicate annuals. I did. By 5:00pm stormy weather moved in. After last weeks closeby tornado, when those warning sirens rang, we watched TV reports. Three storms were in the area. Two were converging on us with possible hail, wind sheer and reports of possible funnel clouds. My first thought? Darn. Why did I put in those flowers! My second thought? Shame on me. Wind threatening lives and property. This is more important than my flower beds.
Today, on my walk, I recalled the story of Jonah, the biblical story about with the whale. Jonah was told by God to go to Nineveh and tell the people to repent. He ran away and was ultimately swallowed by a whale. After he was coughed up, he decided to do as he was asked and went to Nineveh. He preached repentance. Then he went out into the desert and sat under the shade of a gourd plant watching for the "mushroom cloud". The people in Nineveh repented. God changed his plan to destory the city. Jonah's gourd plant withered in the hot sun and he complained. Too hot. Too sunny. God again corrected him and reminded him that God does not want anyone to come to harm. God was tenderhearted toward the city "where there are more than 300,000 who do not know their left hand from their right." (That doesn't mean a city full of dumb people. It means young children.) God was more concerned with the lives of those in Nineveh than Jonah's comfort. I get the message. I repent.