Wildflowers

Each part of today is a gift. A gift as valuable as a seven year old who gathers wildflowers in her arms and presents them to you.

But what will I do with a big pile of weeds? I think as she wanders toward me, skinny arms overflowing with green and earth and life.

“Here Mama!” She holds them out to me. “These are for you!” I look down the hill from where she has climbed up to meet me at the road. The grass is deep and the weeds are as tall as her waist in some places.

The wildflowers she holds out to me are long stalks with tiny yellow flowers at the tips and wiry roots at the other end.  She has picked them on a whim and gifted them to me with intention.

“Thank you, love.” I take them from her and wonder again where these will go. They are too much to go in a vase and there are not enough petals to dry them in a book. If I know myself they will probably just rot in the back of my car.

Even so I gather her in my arms as she has gathered the bouquet and I hold her. Someday, I think, she’ll stop picking them for me.

The difference between wildflower gifts and the gifts that God gives is that the latter doesn’t rot. Or at least has the potential for eternity. When I recognize the quiet minutes before dinner or the early morning sleepy-head that greets me before the rest of the house wakes up, they become gifts. They become distinct memories with eternity written inside them.

When I don’t recognize the small moments and the hard minutes and my breath itself as gifts they become the wildflowers in the back of my car.

So today let’s open our eyes, let’s gather the gifts as they fly at us each hour and let us recognize the goodness in today.