Peonies

Peonies, truly one of my favorite flowers. The bulbs start out so tightly rounded and then they bloom into this most beautiful full flowered color of soft pastel. I bought them yesterday as Catherine and I had to make a stop at the grocery store for the ingredients for her bologna sandwich. They sit strategically placed in my kitchen so that I can see them from several different view points. From where I am writing is one. They are freshly arranged in a glass vase at various heights and bring a decided touch of the outside in.

Fresh flowers seem to have a way of softening my perspective on just about anything. It is their freshness that gives a room such a lift, and the very sight of them just makes me smile and activates a sense of calm within me. Even when I go to New York to see my son and daughter in law, the very sight of flowers on the corner just makes me smile. When I try to figure out what specifically it is in flowers that generates a sort of well being within my soul, I am baffled. For flowers don't move, they don't speak, they just sit quietly in their containers and yet they have a decided effect on me each time I pass them.

And how am I possibly going to work this into a devotional? By this one point...think of all the advantages we have over flowers and yet how often do we have that same effect ( the effect that fresh flowers have) on people whose paths we cross. Do we approach life with a freshness of each new day. Do we add a softness in our speech that generates a calmness and is our very presence a positive influence on those who we are around? Do we add life and color when we enter a room?

I know this analogy is a stretch, but this is how my mind works. Just shows you that you can look at just about anything and find a little something to grow into and grow from. God is in the business of using each of our lives for his purposes. He blesses us with the beauty of fresh flowers and his nature that surrounds us. And if we are paying attention, our senses are activated and inspired to seek our His perspective on situations that are before us. I am calmed and often silenced by the beauty that God has laid before me in his creation. But just as he has made these flowers that sit on my kitchen table, he has made me. I am created with intricacies that far exceed a blooming flower, yet I seldom sit back quietly and relish the ways that God is working in my life to bloom me into being the person he has envisioned me to be. Not in a prideful way but in an appreciative way.If cut flowers can bring about a lift of consciousness to our senses in the short time that they are in bloom, think of the opportunities that are before us in loving and serving others in the years that God is blooming us.

I am called to generate a presence of freshness, of color, of variety and of life, by my very being on this earth, so are you!So are we doing that? Are we actively participating in an everyday array of God's beauty. Beauty of mind and body and soul. God has given us the means in our speech, our movement, and our attitudes to not only solicit God's fresh perspective but to help pass that freshness on to others by loving them and serving them.

Fresh flowers in the kitchen are a reminder that I too can add a little bit of color and calmness....to passersby, and maybe too bring a smile to the face of an onlooker without even having to say a word. Just as fresh flowers bring life to a room, may I too bring life to the others.

Romans 15:4-6 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope. May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Dear Lord, thank you for the beauty of nature that surrounds me. And just as flowers bring such joy to my senses, may I bring that same joy to others. Amen

Praise God wherever you are and whatever situation He has allowed you to be in . . . His glory will shine through!

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