It’s O.K. if Your a Dandelion

The sweet smell of perfectly manicured roses, lingered across the fence, down the grass hill, and around the block to where I lived.

An aroma of sweet scent grew stronger the closer I stepped to my Grandmothers house. Garden’s I admired and one day would own.

It was there, I often saw my thin Grandma silently pruning, turning rich soil with egg shells and coffee grounds.

She didn’t make a sound. But, I knew this place was sacred, the sanctuary where her heart rested, her mind dwelt deeply with God. There, connecting with the earth, that one day she’d become.

I would play in this backyard, but even as a child, I recognized an unspoken message….The roses were valuable, treasured. “Don’t touch the roses”, “Don’t break their stems”, “Don’t accidently damage their delicate pedals”.

Roses were made to look at. Not touch. Doesn’t everybody know that?

My early life didn’t look like roses. There were fears that possessed me, and shadows I couldn’t run from. Worse yet, the voices inside my head kept telling me I was nothing, I didn’t matter…I had no significance.

When I looked at those roses, I smelled sweetness, understook, intentionally cared for perfection. I grasped, even as a child…some flowers had more worth, while others were insignicant.

Yet, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it?

And back then? My own emptines shouted at every reminder of the lack of everything I seemed to be possessing.

So, I fought to fill the void. Don’t we all do that sometimes?

I ran to and fro, fighting to create my own sense of significance…

Not realizing, any and all purpose only and simply comes through the image of The One who took our shadows upon a tree, put them to death eternally out of love for you and me.

It is the Creator of any created thing, that gets to give it it’s name, call out it’s purpose, declare it’s beauty….announce it’s treasure and worth to a world looking on it.

Still, I realized, I was NOT a rose, sweet smelling, or beautiful. I was more like a dandelion.

Don’t you just love children? Children have eyes that we lose in adulthood. They see things and hear things and know things, that don’t make sense to the supposedly wise, grown up, or educated.

Each child, holds vision from heaven, the voice of the Father, a much purer reflection of a persective you and I would do well to live see, hear, and live by.

She was outside, also quiet….Not in flawlessly manicured yards, but in the wild, free, overgrown acres of our property. Here, woodpeckers project upon the morning, followed by a harmony of feathered creatures chiming in their sound of rejoicing to their maker.

This little one, seeks this space. The place frangrances lie, of not roses, but grasses, wildflowers, and fresh sky drape out across the field.

It is here, white clouds float carrying secret images, to those willing to look with creative eyes and open imaginations.

I have to admit, the soil of my property isn’t carefully fertilized. Caring for six kids, years later, I have a story I run to and not away from…

No, it doesn’t hold the coffee grounds, thick nightcrawlers, or eggs shells, my Grandma’s once did.

Instead, it gets the left overs of fallen leaves, disinigrated, circulated, and replenishing nutrients naturally. It gets shelter from neighboring trees, run off from our artisian well…

Yes, it is clear, this soil is God-given, not man created, added to, or formulated.

“Close your eyes Mommy.” I hear her say, after returning from her wild wanderings in our field.

“O.K. Honey” I slap, somewhat dramatically my palm over my eyes. “What is it?” I antagonize, sounding anxiously impatient and eager.

“HERE.” I open my eyes to find a full hand, tightly gripping a randomly selected bunch of dandelions.

“Oh honey, they are beeeaaautiful.” I linger long words, to show the swooning of my heart at a little girl who brims with song and dance, underneath her untold story.

Carefully plucking them from her hand, I grab her tight with both arms, swish her, knowing each dandelion was plucked with thoughtfulness…Chosen intentionally for it’s intrinsic beauty, beauty out of love, from the overflow of her heart, chosen with carefully by this sweet child’s eyes.

And I wonder, when have we become blind? Only seeing the carefully pruned, perfectly tailored and manicured roses in this life?

When did we orchestrate, cultivate, structured, or manipulated…then robbed from God the definition of stunning?

Why do we label parts of His creation worth something…while other parts of His creation, such as dandelions, as worthless?

When I grew up and eventually purchases my grandmother’s house with my husband, I always thought I would clip and tuck, and save my coffee grounds and egg shells to replicate my Grandmother’s roses as she tended the soil of her soul so well.

But then, I got older and realized…God is the pruner, the tender, the grower of any and all beauty. He also is the label-er of what He calls breathe-taking and beautiful.

I don’t know about you, but maybe today, you are reading this and feel just like a dandelion; useless, worthless, a dime a dozen.

Have you ever told yourself you have nothing worth offering?

Maybe the soil of your childhood failed to be tended? You grew wild like my field, with rocks bulging, hard soil in your heart that you were confident couldn’t grow anything?

Friends? Today, I welcome you to ask God to prune your life, invite Him to tend the forgotten places, the overgrown, wild and weary places.

He knows where bolders are hidden, and He alone can command trees and bees, and flowers to bloom wherever He pleases.

Ask God for His eyes. Maybe you have come from a childhood of strict rules and regiments? You have been taught, it is only the elite, roses in this life, that are worth smelling or celebrating…

But, friend, there is beauty wherever God places it. And it is in the eye of the beholder to find it and celebrate it.

Let’s be like little children, and welcome the dandelions…in ourselves, in others, in a world that has deemed only roses worth purchasing.

Won’t you leave this space knowing, you are a thing of beauty. God made you with purpose. He scatters seed, and it is our job to pick what He has given, celebrate, and display it.

“The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lordlooks at the heart.” ~ Samuel 16:7

Some say dandelions are useless, nuisances, unwanted…but their healing remedy, their beauty? It isn’t just external, but what lies hidden, deep inside each flower..their internal ingredients have priceless and intrinsic worth. (Read more, here)

You, no, WE all are a creation of beauty. God has called us, possesses us, made us, and declares us as His perfectly designed children. Flowers bowing in a seas of grass, sprinkled across the field of His overflowing heart.

And if a child can see our worth, deem the unwanted in this world beautiful…

Then maybe so should we.

 

** If this post has touched you in any way today, won’t you please consider sharing? Likely, there are many more “dandelions”, like us, who need to understand, realize, and recognize their own beauty.