Victories Like the Wildflowers
Victories Like the Wildflowers
It was early morning of a beautiful day. The valley lay as though still asleep. The only sounds were the joyful laughter of the running streams and the gay little songs of the birds. The dew sparkled on the grass and the wild flowers glowed like little jewels. Especially lovely were the wild anemones, purple, pink, and scarlet, which dotted the pastures everywhere, thrusting their beautiful little faces up through straggling thorns. Sometimes the Shepherd and Much-Afraid walked over patches of thousands of tiny little pink or mauve blossoms, each minutely small and yet all together forming a brilliant carpet, far richer than any seen in a king's palace.
Once the Shepherd stooped and touched the flowers gently with his fingers, then said to Much-Afraid with a smile, "Humble yourself, and you will find that Love is spreading a carpet of flowers beneath your feet."
Much-Afraid looked at him earnestly. "I have often wondered about the wild flowers," she said. "It does seem strange that such unnumbered multitudes should bloom in the wild places of the earth where perhaps nobody ever sees them and the goats and cattle can walk over them and crush them to death. They have so much beauty and sweetness to give and no one on whom to lavish it, nor who will even appreciate it."
The look the Shepherd turned on her was very beautiful. "Nothing my Father and I have made is ever wasted," he said quietly, "and the little wild flowers have a wonderful lesson to teach. They offer themselves so sweetly and confidently and willingly, even if it seems that there is no one to appreciate them. Just as though they sang a joyous little song to themselves, that it is so happy to love, even though one is not loved in return.
"I must tell you a great truth, Much-Afraid, which only the few understand. All the fairest beauties in the human soul, its greatest victories, and its most splendid achievements are always those which no one else knows anything about, or can dimly guess at. Every inner response of the human heart to Love and every conquest over self-love is a new flower on the tree of Love.
"Many a quiet, ordinary, and hidden life, unknown to the world, is a veritable garden in which Love's flowers and fruits have come to such perfection that it is a place of delight where the King of Love himself walks and rejoices with his friends. Some of my servants have indeed won great visible victories and are rightly loved and reverenced by other men, but always their greatest victories are like the wild flowers, those which no one knows about. Learn this lesson now, down here in the valley, Much-Afraid, and when you get to the steep places of the mountains it will comfort you."
It is so easy for me to be upset because of lack of recognition for the important little things I do about the house everyday. This beautiful passage from one my favorite books has especially ministered to me, reminding me that my labor is not done for human appreciation but for the love of my LORD . This is one of the hardest lessons of love, I know, and one which I continue to struggle with. As Christ assures us, however, "I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last more than the first." (Revelations 2:19)
Excerpt: Taken from Hind's Feet On High Places, written by Hannah Hurnard (1979). American edition copyright held by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. © 1987
Photograph: Wildflowers. Copyright information unknown.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007