Wild Flowers

I've been noticing wild flowers lately. California poppies. Wild lupine. Roses. They're blooming in gardens, in the woods, and by the side of the road: so brightly orange, so deeply purple; pristine, perfect. Wherever they grow, they are content. It is sufficient that they bloom and they bless us as we pass by. They don't have to be showcased to be beautiful. Even if no one sees them, they are enough. They are perfect.

Just like each of us. We don't have to be showcased in order to bloom, to be beautiful, to be enough. We don't have to be noticed by anybody in order to be sufficient or lovely. We are not just "okay." We are perfect, and like flowers, we can bloom in contentment, completely without the notice of the rest of humanity, because we are good and beautiful in God's eyes.

Its not about where we bloom or how we bloom at all. It's the fact that we do bloom--sometimes in spite of where we're planted. For us, like for the  flowers, it's not about needing to be seen. It's about us being who we were made to be--the colors, fragrances, and infinite variations, being content and being fully who we are--okay with being different from the next person. Okay to be unseen if we happen to bloom somewhere off the beaten path.

And if we seem to be growing far from where others might notice us, we need to know that ultimately, we are not unseen. We are celebrated; we are known; we are loved by our Creator, and He knows exactly what little corner of the earth we inhabit.

It is also beautiful to me how content flowers are to bless the earth. Whether we transplant them into places where a lot of people see, or leave them in the jungles or the mountain pastures where they spring up, bloom, and then fade unseen by human eye, wherever they find themselves, they do not change their behavior or their focus. They're humble. They're content. And they are fully given to blooming.

In fact, flowers don't care where they bloom, because ultimately they're focused on seed, on generations to come, on spreading and filling the earth with beauty.
I want to be that way--happy to bloom where I'm planted without a need to be noticed, singled out, or exclamed over. I am enough. I am beautiful. I am perfect. And so are you :-)