Smelling The Flowers

Be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.

1 Peter 1:6-7

Trials and flowers do not seem to have much in common, except that we sometimes send flowers to people experiencing trials, to bring cheer and to let them know we are thinking of them.

What is your favorite flower? Inside or outside your home, they add pizzazz and brighten your heart too.

But after a few days, how do they look? Flowers look cheerful when they’re soaking up water in a vase or blooming in soil, but look sad when they turn brown and droopy. They provide tangible reminders of an encouraging truth: just as flowers bloom with the nourishment of water and soil, we can blossom during trials when Christ nourishes our faith.

God tells us in 1 Peter that our faith will be proved genuine in trials and there is wonderful joy ahead. We just can’t see it yet! Only in Christ can we “be truly glad” when we get drenched by a trial or when tough times batter us like wind gusts against delicate flower petals.

Big, small, long, or short, trials are temporary. They actually work in our favor by motivating the roots of our faith to reach deeper for God’s sustaining nourishment. When we grow this way, our faith is strengthened, we experience joy that only God can create, and our lives bring glory and honor to God.

I often wear big flower pins and decorate with floral pillows in our home to remind myself that something good is going on in the midst of my trials, even though it’s hidden by the dirt. After all, a flower grows only when it rains.

Keep a small vase handy for flowers that little hands bring you from the yard, or treat yourself to a bunch of your favorite variety from the grocery store or florist. Thank God for His visual gift of joy and beauty.