Nurturing What Matters

One of my favorite quips is, "I love flowers, but they come to my house to die. I have a brown thumb." Two of those statements are false. Flowers don't come to my house to die, flowers are brought into my home (usually by me) because they remind me of the beauty of God's creation. And I don’t have a brown (as in killer of green) thumb.

So imagine my surprise, as I looked at the latest lily plant and thought, "It's going to die," when Holy Spirit asked, "So, you don't believe you can nurture and grow something of beauty?" I thought, "Nope." Simple. Not complicated. Beautiful plants die when I get hold of them. Those are my (coach Michele interrupts, waving her hands and says loudly), "self limiting beliefs!," like she had just won some silly nerd lottery. “Yes, that would be an example of a self-limiting belief,” I thought.

Anyway, the fact that God was talking with me about nurturing flowers which, according to Matthew 6:30 are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, meant there was more to this conversation than my love of flowers. I would have kept it all it to myself and my journal, but a friend called to ask if I could help her because she wants to grow plants but so far had "two kills" to her credit. "Really, God?", I thought.

So what do I believe this conversation is really about? For me, it is about my response when things appear to be headed in a disappointing direction. If you're like me, you might 'brace yourself': translation "prepare your heart to be disappointed", then protect that heart from further damage by 'walking away.' Walking away doesn't mean necessarily physically moving, but emotionally moving from a place of active care. Consider this math-like formula:

"This is about to disappoint me + I must minimize the damage by walking away [+because I am powerless to change the outcome I expect] = I won't be hurt by the bad thing because I stopped expecting good to come from it."

Ok, so you know I wasn't good at math by looking at that formula, but I think you get it. Here’s my challenge: to lean into nurturing flowers as I practice not running from other hard assignments.

Wanna join me? If so, post your flower pics, if you’re ready. Here’s mine:

You are loved.

Michele