Every couple weeks, I go to the grocery store and buy fresh flowers for the house where I live, and where I work. It's very convenient. I started getting into this habit about 9 or 10 months ago and it has really brightened up the room. It has also gotten compliments from other people who come into our space for events and gatherings.
Around two months or so ago, it was time to go get flowers. I went to the same store I always go to and picked out some pretty looking flowers to match the weather season we were in. I went to the self checkout and as I was scanning, this lady older than me (probably 60s or so) came up behind me and said "someone is getting brownie points this evening."
Now this threw me off and I almost said, "Oh no this is for my boss where I work." Praise the Lord I didn't say that. Instead I just laughed it off and acknowledged her playful banter. At least I hope it was playful. She then said, "Well I know it would get me brownie points." At this point, I knew she was just joking and being playful so I took it as such. But, I did not expect it at all. Nor did I care to hear what this lady's ticket was to earning brownie points. Ugh yuck.
But I digress.
This particular instance is not the first time I have gotten called out at the store for buying flowers. A few weeks after that another lady around the same age jokingly asked me, "are those for me?!" I have even had a guy jokingly ask me that same question. That is when I buy and run out of the store as quickly as I can.
The reason I tell this story is for a good laugh, but also to mention an observation I have made that is nothing new or even noval. Flowers can be seen as very romantic, but today I want to take off the romance lens and appreciate what flowers bring to not just women, but men as well. For all of us.
Beauty is a word that can be objective in some eyes. Hinting at the saying that I have heard, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Whether or not I think that saying is completely true all the time I'm not so sure. I think like all sayings and analogies, it breaks down somewhere. But that is a rabbit hole.
I want to look at beauty as an opportunity to pause and reflect. Maybe one of the reasons why I buy flowers is just for this. Sure it is easy to glance at flowers and say they are pretty and forget about them. But what deeper satisfaction do we miss by doing so? Like growing crops or planting a tree, it is incredible that something beautiful can come out of the dirty, messy ground that we trample on. And smelly stinky manure can even help with growth and health. This is where flowers are born.
For me, flowers are a reminder to savor beauty for beauty's sake. It also reminds me that even though my life is messy at times, God still chooses to create something beautiful. Kinda like a flower bursting through dirt and manure to reveal something beautiful that I couldn't produce. Something beautiful for all to see.
Choose to savor beauty for beauty's sake because the Creator of the world has deemed it worthy and worthwhile. For God, it is not a waste of time to create a small, fragile plant that gives life to our eyes. That is, if we take time to notice and appreciate it. I have heard some say, "why buy fresh flowers when they die in a week or two?" But, I think that is the wrong framework.
Beauty is not always about what it can give us in the future, but rather what it offers us in the here and now. Not tomorrow or yesterday. But today. Like flowers, our lives are short and soon forgotten over time. Matthew 6:28-30 states:
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?
Why worry about how long the flowers will last? Or worry about the 'what if's' of your tomorrows? Hold on to today. And maybe even better put, hold on to who holds today. Trust that your Father in Heaven cares much more for you than the flowers on your table. If He puts that much care and beauty in fragile plants that die quickly, how much more care and beauty will he put into your life?
And the beauty I'm talking about is not necessarily physical or even material from which we could seek (And God does provide our needs in material, with beauty I might add). But more importantly, the beauty of being with our Savior. Our Creator. And in him we see all things and all people more clearly. More beautiful than we ever could alone.
So go and buy some fresh flowers. Cut the stems diagonally, because that allows the flowers to get more water. Put them in a vase. And just admire them. For Beauty's sake.
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