Weeds

It isn't buttercup season yet at our home.  It is dandelion bouquet season.  I have received several this Spring from my little sticky fingered admirers.  What simple beauty and such lessons a simple weed can reveal to me!  What a joy to accept these gifts! 

Lesson of the Buttercup

Look at this buttercup as it begins to learn its new lesson.
The little hands of the calyx clasp tightly in the bud round the beautiful petals;
In the young flower their grasp grows more elastic -
Loosening somewhat in the daytime, but keeping the power of contracting,
Able to close in again during a rainstorm, or when night comes on.
But see the central flower, which has reached its maturity.
The calyx hands have unclasped utterly now - 
They have folded themselves back, past all power of closing again upon the petals,
leaving the golden crown free to float away when God's time comes.


Have we learned the buttercup's lesson yet?  
Are our hands off the very blossom of our life?
Are all things - even the treasures that He has sanctified -
Held loosely, ready to be parted with, without a struggle,
When He asks for them?


- Quotation from A Blossom in the Desert. Reflections of Faith in the Art and Writings of Lilias Trotter.