Flowers

Add caption

At the beginning of lockdown, which seems like such a long time ago, I decided to make sure that were signs of hope around the house. I did this through having flowers in the house. Every week I’d place new blooms on the dining table where my children study, on my desk in my study, and in the lounge. It might seem like a strange thing to do but through the week I’d watch the flowers open up and show their beautiful colours, and smell their fresh fragrance. 

As the weeks trudged by I clung onto the day that I would take my weekly trip to the shops and pick out a different bunch. There is something calming and stilling looking at flowers. Each petal is unique, each stalk a different shape, each leaf a different shade of green. 

Once I spent a day watching a bulbous peony open up. Hour by hour the petals shifted and opened slightly in the spotlight of the sun. My children and I huddled around this flower just waiting for it to open. And by the end of the afternoon it popped open, petals opening like the final bow of a stage performer. 

Flowers are a sign of hope. In bud they seem unknown and silent yet inside much is going on. Once I had a bunch of lilies that seemed like they would not open at all. Two weeks passed by and they remained fully closed. Then as I was just about to replace them they opened up in their perfumed glory, how happy I felt seeing what felt like a small miracle.

Eventually all of my flowers were ready for the garden waste, and as I said goodbye I remembered this passage from Isaiah 40:8 “The grass withers, the flower fades: but the word of our God will stand forever.” 

This is the hope that we can cling onto, that the word of God, Jesus Christ never fades or withers. Jesus is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. He holds onto us tightly as we bloom and flourish. And like my lilies sometimes it takes longer for us to open up, but Jesus loves us with a patient love who keeps calling us back to him over and over again.

Lockdown and the virus will have changed us all in some way, for some in unimaginable ways. For myself I saw my theological college life end, my placement in my previous church finish, and then ordination was postponed. All of it was like turning off a light switch, one minute it was on and then it was off. I’m sure many of you will have reflections of lockdown like this, and some still carrying the pain of losses that cannot be replaced.

Jesus comes to us with a sweet fragrance of hope bursting through into whatever situation we are in now. I pray that over these coming weeks we can find hope and a little bit of joy in the gift of the flowers we see in the world around us, the signs of hope even in the long grass.