Amazing Care! Amazing Creator!

Because I'm enthralled by the exquisite beauty in flowers, even wildflowers and weeds, I can hardly bear to pass one by without taking its picture. As you can imagine, I have thousands of flower photos stored on various hard drives. For years, I made little effort to learn their names; but recently I've felt a need to identify them and to learn more about their uniqueness. 

For example, when I edited this "portrait" of one of the dozens of pink evening primroses growing in a drainage ditch near my mailbox, I decided to add a touch of elegance to it. I think the black background really showcases the loveliness of the common flower. Do you agree?

While reading a bit about it, I learned that it blooms from March through July, usually during the predawn hours, but protects itself by closing its petals during the heat of the day. Several insects visit it, especially the moths that are active at night.

These wildflowers spring up and flourish for a season, just as we do. Yet, God endowed them with great beauty, equipped them with systems that shelter them from the oppressive heat, and allows these delicate blooms to delight and serve other living things He created. I think that's amazing! Don't you?

Lessons from Flowers

As folks who know me can attest, I enjoy photographing flowers of all kinds. I don’t delight in making or maintaining the garden itself, but I do love it when I have an opportunity to photograph the flowers in other folks’ gardens. Fortunately, sweet friends often invite me over to photograph the beautiful results of their hard work. And my husband and I are blessed to be able to travel a good bit, too. When we’re “on the road,” we’re always on the lookout for parks, botanical gardens, plant nurseries, businesses with flowers out front, hanging basket lining the city sidewalks, courtyard in the downtown area, small gardens near entrances to the hotels where we stay, etc.

Although gardens require a good bit of money, time, attention, and hard work, wildflowers don’t. Quite the contrary! They just appear in various places and seem to do very well without human intervention. Many of my favorite “flower photos” are of wildflowers--and also weeds with beautiful blooms. I even love dandelion blooms and seed heads.

Because of my love of beautiful blooms, these three verses in Isaiah 40 captured my attention: “All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever” (vv.6-8, New American Standard Bible).

These verses point out how temporal our lives are. Even though we, like the grasses of the field, bloom and flourish for a time, we will not be here forever. We, like the grasses, will wither and fade; and those who pass by where we used to live may scarcely remember us—if at all.

Yet, God, who is eternal, created us for His good pleasure and lets us live and flourish for a season, as He does the wildflowers and the grasses of the field. In fact, Jesus referred to the beauty of the grasses of the field when He was reminding His followers not to worry about what they would eat or drink or wear. “And why are you anxious about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory did not clothe himself like one of these. But if God so arrays the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more do so for you, O men of little faith?” (Matthew 6:28-30, NASB).

 

Thus, we should not worry about our lives, but simply bloom where God has planted us and let our lives testify to HIS glory and goodness.

 (C) 2014 by Johnnie Ann Gaskill