The Story of the Pink Flower
By Adele Bower

I draw and paint a lot. I even doodle. My old, tattered Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary says: doodle n: an aimless scribble, design, or sketch. I’m not insulted. That definition does apply to some of my artwork. I like most mediums including charcoal, pen and ink, colored pencils, markers, oils, acrylics, watercolors, whatever suits me that day. My latest medium is the computer.

One day while doodling in my computer paint program, I sketched a little pink flower. I didn’t have a plan or purpose for this work of art, just having fun. Right away it became important to me. I wasn’t sure why I liked it so much, so I saved it into my artwork file. Occasionally I came across the pink flower sketch and again sensed a special attachment to it. It looked so small and insignificant. It was just a quick little sketch.

I love flowers and work to keep some in our flowerbeds and in pots on the patio. Often I find a tiny little flower growing wild in our flowerbed. Fully grown, it is no taller than one-half an inch, including the stem. The blossom is the size of a grain of rice and is a beautiful, delicate pink. I thank the Lord for His incredible creativity and attention to detail. I know there are better examples of teeny, tiny things the Lord has created, but I don’t usually see those during my day.

Days and months went by as the Lord taught me more about the kind of relationship He wants to share with me. A theme kept appearing: The Lord Jesus Christ is the great God and Creator of the universe and I’m just one insignificant person for whom He gave His life. Now that’s grace. He is ever-present, ever faithful, ever-loving, ever-everything I’ve ever needed or will ever need.

During this time, I recalled a poem from high school English literature class:

The Rhodora-On Being asked, Whence is the flower?
By Ralph Waldo Emerson

“In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals, fallen in the pool,
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! If the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then beauty is its own excuse for being:
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask, I never knew:
But, in my simple ignorance, suppose
The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.”

There it was, the answer to my attachment to the pink flower sketch. God had created the little wild flower, so small, so seemingly insignificant, yet beautiful. Whether recognized and celebrated by anyone, the tiny flower is its own excuse for being. The self-same Power created me, saved me and daily blesses me with all spiritual blessings. I feel a kinship with the little pink flower. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians dispels all feelings of insignificance for the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,
which God prepared in advance for us to do.”_________Ephesians 2:10

Feel the kinship……you are prepared….create!