The wonder of the first shoot coming through the earth, the unfurling of the first bud and the radiance of the full blown flower all remind me that life is a process, that it takes time to blossom. But as I’m discovering, eventually the flower fades and the seedpod becomes the essence of the continuity of life.
It’s often the most overlooked part of any plant. We smell the rose but how often do we admire the hip? Old age feels a lot like that. Often overlooked, frequently dismissed and yet filled to overflowing with life experience and hard earned wisdom, the sort that only the storms of life can birth. But experience and wisdom that can live on beyond us as we hand it onto the next generation … like seed sprinkled on fresh ground.
But the pod must be broken for the seed to be set free and in many ways it's the broken people who have the most to give. Those who’ve endured. The resilient souls who’ve been battered and bruised by the storms of life but not given up. People who faced life head on and lived it to the full. Time and life have matured them and their legacy is rich.
They remind me of people. There are the tough, rugged, no nonsense type that are hard to crack, the free spirited ones that have leaned to fly, and the wild, flamboyant ones that fire the imagination with their passion and energy. Sound like folks you know?
I wonder how fully we realise our uniqueness and how precious that is? Its hard for most of us to see ourselves as unique but to us has been given what no other person has ever had. Created for a purpose that no one else can fulfil in the way we can. It fills me with awe.
Dan Allender says, We are, in fact, a unique, once-on-the-earth life that reveals the story of Jesus in a fashion that no one else will ever do in the way we are written to reveal.
In the words of my new favourite song, "Oh Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer, may all my days bring glory to Your name."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpELMk4-3n8