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Topic: Yellow (11/12/09)
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TITLE: The Beauty of A Dandelion | Previous Challenge Entry
By Carrie Avery
11/18/09 -
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It was a beautiful morning in the middle of November. We had arrived at church a bit early. We stood outside looking at the green grass still on the ground. The trees were barren of leaves as they had fallen for the arrival of winter. Yet, we were not wearing coats and it was not cold enough for snow. We were silently enjoying this late autumn Sunday morning.
The young boy was only four or five. I knew already knew his name, Caleb, from Sundays before. He sat on his bike, looked up at me and asked, “What is your name?”. I answered, “Carrie.”. He questioned again, “Will you watch me ride my bike?” I smiled and said, “Sure!” I watched Caleb ride his red bike around the parked cars. Then he stopped hard showing he knew how to use the brakes. “Wow, you’re really good at that!”, I told him.
Caleb got off his bike and ran into the yard. Finding a yellow Dandelion, he plucked it out of the grass. I thought to myself, ‘That must be the last Dandelion because I don’t see any others’. He ran back toward me and I asked him, “Did you find a flower?” “Yes, it’s for you.”, he answered. Again, I smiled and thanked him. I put the stem of the little yellow Dandelion in a button hole on the front of my blouse.
Back inside the church, I sat holding my three month old grandson on my lap. I took the Dandelion from my blouse and showed it to Chase saying, “Look at the pretty flower.”, as I held it up in front of him. His eyes got big with awe and wonder and his lips puckered round as if to say, “Oh---, pretty!”. I watched Chase with wonder also as he looked at this bright thing I held in my fingers.
Most people see a Dandelion as a nuisance if they grow in their lawn. But, these two children saw something more in this flower that we tend to ignore. They saw the beauty and wonder in the flower. God had opened my eyes and my heart. He showed me by watching these children with this Dandelion, what it means to become child-like. Everything of God’s creation is beautiful if you look closely and see things as though a child would.
In the New American Standard Bible, (NASB), Matthew 18:1-5 says,” ‘At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. “Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, “And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me;”.
We can see people and things of God’s creation as a child does because we are God’s children. Romans 8:16 (NASB) says, “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.”.
In Ephesians 5:1,2 (NASB) it says, “ Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.”
I believe God used that yellow Dandelion, the only one left in the grass that I could see, and these two young children to show me I, too, am His child. And this is how I should become; child-like. To see everything of God’s creation; people, animals, nature, universe, with awe and wonder. Then share this awe and wonder with love to others to spread God’s love for us, His children.
I think it’s amazing how God chose to share His message of child-like love with me that Sunday morning in mid-November.
The Spirit of Jesus led that young boy to pick a little yellow Dandelion and say to me, “It’s for you.”. Such a sweet little gift of love and friendship wrapped up in a flower. Then the Spirit of Jesus showed me on the face of a baby, just how big and beautiful His gift of love and friendship really is. In a little yellow Dandelion or stretched out and nailed to a cross, Jesus has a gift of love and friendship. And, “It’s for you!”
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