Last week we talked about the Autumn mess in getting our yards put to bed for the Winter. We saw at the end, that everything God made was indeed “very good”.
I don’t think we ever languish for attention the way my flowers did. God is constantly attending to us. Even during the times when we agonize and lament, He is right with us. He assures us that He feels our pain—and we can believe that He really does!
He’s after something special in our lives. It sometimes takes the pain and the unexpected turns in our journeys to bring about that special aspect in us. If our faces are in the dirt, He comes along and tenderly picks us up, wraps His hands around our cheeks, and kisses away our hurts with His assurances that He will never leave us and His eyes are always upon us.
I have a plan for my yard every year and I work to make it happen. But somewhere along towards later summer, I seem to give up. Maybe the weeds are too big or too many. Or life just generally gets too busy and I neglect my flowers that are still giving their beauty to all who pass by.
Father never just passes by. He always stops to appreciate. He admires the beauty in us, and He prunes away the dead parts so the beauty has no detraction. He props us up when our “stalks” grow heavy just so our faces will still look up at Him.
When the weeds grow around us and the parasites move in—He is right there with the weed wacker and insecticide. Ouch—that may hurt, but oh, how good it feels in the long run. We are free to sway in the breeze and show off our stuff.
I pulled up my iris flowers last week and cleaned them out and laid them to dry. Now they are packed in boxes waiting for transplanting in spring. What a job it was! Those things are quite tenacious as they hold to the soil. And when I got them out—my goodness! There were three times as many as I planted some years ago. And their roots look like many legged beetles. Ugh. They must be the ugliest roots I’ve ever seen. But the flowers are so beautiful and varied in color. I would even call them majestic.
Is that how we look to God? What grace He has to clean us and replant us where we will be the most beautiful. And it is very good.
“Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good” Genesis 1:31a.
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