God’s Pick

A couple weeks ago, Riverbend hosted a flower-arranging event at the women’s monthly meetup.  I took my teenage daughter, planning to let her put together our box from the gorgeous spring blooms around the room.  She hopped from bucket to bucket of flowers, pulling bundles of hydrangea and stems of bright roses in every color.  She bounced around the room like a bee among the flowers, and she wasn’t alone.  As the buckets emptied, the energy shifted to the tables as all the women turned their attention to arranging.  

After everyone had settled into their seats and started working, a friend asked me, “Would you like to do one of your own? We have plenty of supplies.  Take a box!”  Delighted at the opportunity, I went to see what flowers and greenery still remained. I walked among the mostly empty buckets containing what might charitably be called “the leftovers.” Some had small or wilted blooms, others dull or drooping, a few stems broken to the point that their flowers hung sadly downward like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.  Much of what remained lacked a bloom altogether but was greenery—“filler”—with a spindly, wild flare.  Thrilled at the chance to participate nonetheless, I happily scooped up what remained and began assembling my box. 

Perhaps because I wasn’t expecting the most colorful, the blooming, the best—I wasn’t expecting anything—I was delighted to find in each choice something beautiful.  I found that crooked or half-broken stems could be stood up next to stronger greenery.  Single blooms that had appeared dull in the bucket now popped brightly when positioned against dark spots in my bouquet. The collective effect of individual blooms that may not have been my first choice, this ragtag band of leftovers, was one of celebrated contrast, of imperfect and wild nature. As I walked out with my personal treasure, a woman stopped me and said, “Of all the different arrangements, I think yours was my favorite.  There’s something really special about it.  It’s art.” As someone who has killed more plants than she has grown, it meant the world.

Lately, I’ve felt tired and burned out; if I’m being honest, I haven’t felt particularly “Christian.” In fact, if someone were to come around and pick out those of us with the best, most Jesus-like attitude, I’d be left in the bucket.  But what I love knowing is that Jesus is the kind of savior who DELIGHTS in finding beauty in the rejects. He walks among the uninvited, the broken, the crooked, and sees the potential in us all. Isaiah 42:3 says,

“He will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle.  He will bring justice to all who have been wronged.”

When life crushes us, when we feel broken, when our blooms hang limp and dull from our stalks, He doesn’t snap us off and throw us out, or leave us where we lie.  With tender love and care, He takes us in His hands, sees the beauty in our break, and creates art.  Sometimes He leans us against one another, so that one’s strength is the other’s salvation.  Sometimes He sets us against darkness, so that our light might pop against the backdrop.  But it is my prayer that wherever you may be today—full bloom or otherwise—you see your value as He sees it.  Even when the world casts you aside or when your own attitude leaves you feeling unworthy, Jesus deeply loves and pursues you.  You are and have always been His pick, a part of His bouquet, just as you are.