Skip to main content

When the weather outside is frightful....

Sometimes in order to preserve beauty, you have to kill it.
Though things are going quite well as they are and everything seems hunky-dory, you have to take it away from its comfortable living conditions in order to save it from the harsh weather that is eminent.

Just this past week I cut one of the nearly blossoming yellow tulips from my front yard because I knew that the weather was supposed to turn sour this weekend and I wanted to save this delicate little flower from the frost. I wanted to enjoy its life-giving warm color from the inside of our house even as the snow raged furious outside. I wanted to give this flower a chance to do what it was designed to do--add beauty to the cold slumber of awaiting spring.

So I picked it. I plucked it. I had Katie put it in a vase and gave it all the water and sunlight it could ever want.

It blossomed yesterday and today it stands on our kitchen window sill, proudly displaying its full beauty as it defies the snow through the pane of protection that guarded it from the harsh elements inches away.

I wonder...is love ever like a flower? What are those times where we have to do what hurts in order to preserve the beauty of the love? Are there ever times when the only difference between cold, icy death and warm, breathing life is an invisible wall of protection that keeps the good in and the bad out? What is God's role in this flower relationship? Is God the gardener? The vase with the water? Or the pane of glass?

And for a light-hearted ending:
"Yeah, come on Jesus. Follow me already"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Casting A Conscientious Vote

Here's the thing America: you nominated two terrible representatives for public office--one "Republican" and one Democrat. Both of their campaign managers have decided that the strongest approach to get elected is to basically claim " at least I'm not them ." Both parties have released ad campaigns to bash the other candidate and both, I might argue, do so quite effectively. Now that I have successfully been persuaded that I should vote for neither candidate (thanks to the other candidate), I am left wondering who there is left to vote for. Certainly there is some candidate who is both qualified as a politician and as a person of reasonable morals?? Enter the 3rd party system. America was founded against a national party system (you can read about that here  for an enlightening time). And yet it is this national party system that has allowed a Democratic convert like Donald Trump to represent the Republican party. Trump knew that the only way to have a ...
8 comments
Read more

Less

WLC Day 3 Before you can add anything to your life you first need to subtract. In this particular case, if I want to add something like a workout to my day, I have to subtract a) play time/free time or, b) sleep. Before I can add any additional activity, group, or discipline to my life, I first need to take away an existing one. This is gonna stink. I know I need to identify what those things are that need pruning, but I just don't want to do it.
1 comment
Read more

Jesus Doesn't Care Who You Vote For

There. I said it.  Of all the things Jesus cares about that you get to decide on a daily basis, who you cast your ballot for in the upcoming 2020 election is far from the top of the list.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Jesus doesn't care who the next president is--the Bible is pretty clear that God does care who the governing authorities are (Daniel 2:21)--fact is, he already knows who it will be!  What I am saying is that you have thousands of tiny decisions to make throughout your day. Most of which, God doesn't really care about: Do I wear my red tie or blue tie to work today?  Should I leave my house before rush hour traffic or at the last possible minute? How many helpings of Lucky Charms can I get away with before someone notices how light the box has become? Each decision has its own ripple effect and you have to live the consequences of each micro-decision. But most of our decisions on a day-to-day basis are pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of th...
2 comments
Read more