Weeds... or Pansies?

Spring is finally here! Everything is beautiful and green.... the trees, the shrubs, the flowers popping their little heads from the earth... it all looks so new.

It is new.

It remembers not the hot, dry days of last summer. The fires that lit up the hill sides during the driest months isn't something that is taken into consideration when sprouting the beauty from within. This kind of beauty shows up every spring... regardless of the past.

Makes me a little envious of a simple plant. Sounds weird, huh? Let me try to explain what's on my mind...

As people, we aren't so good at forgetting the past and exuding beauty regardless of our mood or circumstances. We withhold the best part of us when we just plain ol' feel like it! We let the ugliest part of us prevail over our days more often than we should. We allow the weed inside of us to grow instead of gracing the world with the lovely blossom of Jesus' love.

It's easy to let this happen, isn't it? Life is busy. There's homework to be completed, laundry to be done, dinner to be made, activities to get to. There are job deadlines, grumpy people to have to work with, financial worries and stresses that just seem to never go away! However... isn't that what defines life? We, on the other hand, can choose how we define ourselves.

Will we be the weed of ugliness... or the flower of Christ's beauty?

Two things caused me to ponder these thoughts this week. The first was something very visual. We were at the nursery (as in horticulture) the other day purchasing our plants for our garden. As we were exiting, I looked down and saw the prettiest little pansies growing out of a crack in the pavement. There was no soil that I could see, and I'm not sure how the roots could be healthy at all, but obviously, they were. Talk about thriving in impossible circumstances???

Secondly, my boys have been praying all week for a friend of theirs who had surgery on his legs this week. This boy has never been able to walk un-assisted and he's never had the joy of running. The surgery is supposed to correct his legs almost completely, but not without a lot of pain (initially) and extreme amounts of physical therapy. As Luke was praying the other day, he said something that made the tears just flow from my eyes. He spoke of this boy's character and how he is virtually NEVER without a smile on his face! He has always been able to see the boys around him run and do all the things that he would LOVE to do himself, but we have NOT ONCE heard him complain. This boy is like that patch of pansies growing in the concrete. He knows of Jesus' love for him and he is confident in his purpose. Because of this... his beauty prevails through the smile on his face and the laughter in his voice.

I want to be the pansies growing out of miserable circumstances (not that my circumstances are necessarily always miserable). I want to have the kind of character that even a 12 year old boy stops to consider and admire.

I want to be new... Just as Christ's love is new every morning.



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