When God Sends Flowers

Oct 4, 2021 by Jeanette Hanscome

I was recovering from the worst tension headache on record and felt like fresh air would help. It had been a difficult week of distressing news, and it was only Wednesday. My inner whimpering child just wanted someone to make me soup (but not chicken noodle because it reminds me of being sick and of being so poor that seeing Campbell’s Chicken Noodle at The Dollar Store was the equivalent of manna from heaven) and tell me I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to do. So I took a walk and waited for God to see me and my need for some cheering up.

I knew He had when I passed the lavender bushes where I collect what I affectionately call my Stolen Lavender (a story for another time). It was almost time for the maintenance guys in our development to cut it back for fall, so this was my chance to get a little more to add to my stash for making sachets. I chose the shady side of one bush and picked the first sprig of lavender that I saw waving in the breeze. Then another one started bouncing and I picked that one. One after another, lavender flowers started dancing in front of me as if crying out, “Pick me, pick me!” I laughed and picked. Until I saw one sad looking sprig behind a tall pretty one. The flowering section at the top was bent. Instead of dancing in the wind like those I’d already taken, it just kind of sat there like it knew better than to draw attention to itself and expect to be chosen. Not only did I pick that sad little flower, but I made a special point of taking it before the tall confident one.

“So the last will be first, and the first will be last” (Matthew 20:16).

Jesus would have chosen that flower first too, which is why I’m convinced that He allowed me to see it.

He had picked and cared for me when I felt like an unwanted, misshapen thing. He was taking care of me on this sick day by sending dancing flowers that He know would make me laugh and that pitiful runt in back that He knew would tug on my sentimental heart and remind me of His kindness.

As I walked away with my bundle of lavender, breathing in its fragrance in a way that would cause a passerby to think, Okay, it’s official, she really is weird, my headache was almost gone. I spotted something on a shady path and bent down to see what it was—a perfect flower without its stem, smiling up at me like, “Hello. Please take me home.” I picked it up and kept it safe in my palm knowing it was another present from my Heavenly Father. It is now pressed in a devotional book as a memory of the day that God sent me flowers. I dried the lavender, removed all the dried flowers, and put them in a pretty box in my room as another reminder. And yes, I put the flowers from the bend sprig into the box first.

This was so much better than soup and sympathy.

When has God cared for you in a creative way? How did you preserve the memory?

If you have a story to share, I would love to read it!