Lilies
My grandma had a garden of lilies. Over the years visiting her home, I watched them grow from one little bunch to spreading along her entire fence line, expanding to surround the foundation of her home. They grew in summers of drought the same as summers of flood. They grew through midwestern blizzards and in ‘skin melts on the pavement’ triple digit temperatures. In time, they expanded beyond her Chicago Brick home (which if you squint your eyes, look just like rows of chocolate chip cookies) into mine. Planted beneath my bedroom window, their reach now extended over 200 miles. Every summer more and more of them bloomed to be seen! The sea of flowers so vast, you did not need to squint to take in their sweet beauty.
Although my grandma’s lilies were a vibrant orange in color, lilies also produce one of earth’s purest white flowers. Flawlessly perfect, these white blooms are without blemish. They include all wavelengths of color yet appear colorless. Like snow falling from the sky and sunlight on a cloudless day, they are beautiful.
rooted and still
With the ease at which they spread and the perfect color they have, it is easy to see why they are often used to symbolize Jesus in scripture. Like Jesus, their beauty spreads without effort, overtaking earth’s soil with ease. Their blooms do not toil and strive to survive in hard drought compacted soil. They simply remain. Their leaves do not spin in blizzard winds. They simply remain still, rooted into the ground. Like Jesus they are unmarred and pure. Their white blooms don’t change color with the soil’s changing pH balance. They look the same in the dark of night as they do on a cloudless sunny day.
They neither toil nor spin. They are simply grown by God. They spread out like Jesus’ perfect faith, with new flowers rooted to His white bloom. They are not worried about anything. They are not anxious about the darkness following a setting sun or a bee draining nectar from its’ bloom. They simply rest in each moment.
They are at ease.
They are innocent.
They confidently abide in the soil God planted them in.
They are steadfast and do not fall when darkness comes. They do not wilt in the presence of scorching summer sunlight. They do not droop when the storms come. They stay steady and tall. Pointed upright and flowers intact. No matter the circumstances earth sends, their beauty is the same in the soft breeze of a cool morning as in the harsh winds of a hurricane.
we too
We too can be steadfast and pure. Connected to Jesus, we are the blooms that spread. We are the ones that share Jesus’s perfect faith through our stories with Him. We too can be content calm and confident in anything. Fearing not the circumstances that surround us or the people who come alongside us. We too can simply rest in each moment, both in the dangers of the darkness and the celebrations of the sunlight. Our hearts can be at ease.
We too can stand firm when the darkness of this broken world comes our way. We can rise up when sin threatens to scorch us dry. We too can be steady and our hearts still when the chaos of life closes in on us. We can simply be grown by God. We too can point others to Jesus. In anything, our life remains intact. No matter the circumstances earth sends, our beauty is the same in the soft breeze of a cool morning as in the harsh winds of a hurricane.
