When Flowers Fall

Last Saturday I brought home some flowers for my wife. I know she appreciates them, but truth be told, I like them, too! There is something about fresh flowers that speaks "life" into any environment. Especially the place we call home.

The arrangement was lovely, appropriately sized and well priced in my opinion. It always makes me feel good to find some way to express love to my sweet wife (she has to put up with too much of me to not have something that smells "sweet" in her life on occasion).

The thing that bugs me about fresh cut flowers is their terminal nature. Technically speaking, we're giving something "dead" to the one we love. We trim an inch off the bottom of each stem, stick them in water after mixing in the "miracle" flower preservative, but for all intents and limited purposes those things are as dead as an upside down cockroach.

(Somehow, though, offering a deceased insect doesn't have the same net effect.)

All week, the flowers have been beautiful to see and they have reminded me of just how special my wife is to me. Would that I could fill our home daily with flowers as a testimony of how important she is to me and our family. But even dead stuff has a high price.

But today, as I passed by our plant stand behind the cream-colored arm chair in the family room, I saw one of the lilly blossoms lying on the floor. I located the bare stem from which it fell and kind of mourned the loss. I didn't have time to pick it up, so I've got that to look forward to when we get home. There is a chance the dog or cat might try to eat it. Less of a chance one of my daughters will pick it up. But the whole beautifully dead and dying thing gave me a thought.

Left alone, aren't we all kind of like that? As infants, we're beautifully born (even us "ugly" babies) but from the moment we're birthed, we're on a journey toward death. It is as real as anything else. I know this all sounds a bit morose, but there is a hope we can grow into...

"Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness..." (Lam. 3:22-23).

I love the thought that from God's point of things are "new" every morning. Though my flesh may wither like the cut flower (hopefully not as fast, but sometimes I wonder), my spirit is renewed and restored every day. God doesn't have to look at the spiritual me and mourn the death of the soul. He has provided "eternal life" in the here and now (John 17:3) through Jesus Christ.

If you feel withered, like a fallen bloom to the ground, please remember "new mercies" and just try to take in all the beauty God is created inside you. In turn, you will ultimately be a "love expression" as in a house filled with flowers. "Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day" (2 Cor. 4:16).

Buy someone a few flowers, you'll be glad you did...