Little Flower Gifts

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. - James 1:17

My daughter loves flowers.  Flowers outside.  Flowers on her bedspread and curtains.  Flowers on her clothes.  And... she gives them as tokens of her affection.  Just this morning as we were headed out the door, she announced with backpack on her back, "Wait!  Mommy!  I need to get a flower for my teacher!"  She then turned around and promptly went and snipped a flower from the leftover Easter bouquet on the kitchen table.  As the mother of this sweet child, she has given me so many flowers that I am now unable to keep up with their crispy remnants around the house.  I have one on my nightstand right now that is taped to a post-it with the words, "I love you Mommy."  There are many in the cup holder in my car. There is one on the island in my kitchen.  And as I sit here typing there is a collection of dried yellow, purple, and blue flowers on the base of my desk lamp.  The delicate gifts sprinkled by a little girl with love and affection for her mother.  Can I have an "awwwww"?

Though...there have been times when her tokens of affection have not been fully appreciated by me.  Like the time she left some very long weeds on my computer keyboard.  And the cat thought they looked alot like his long cat toy and he decided to play with the flowers.  In his exuberance, he successfully clawed off numerous keys on my computer keyboard and managed to embed the seeds under the other keys.  Or the times when "insect laden blossoms" have been placed ever so sweetly as beautiful decorations.... on my full plate of food.  You get the picture.  I could go on, but feel too guilty and like a "curmudgeony" mom to tell anymore stories, as I do know these gestures are because she loves me.  I am sad to report that sometimes, this control freak mom, finds these gifts messy.  I grumble about the messes that come along with these precious gifts.  They start out sweet and innocent and then they sometimes become messy and I see them as a nuisance or just "another" mess for me to clean, or a problem to be fixed.  (Sigh)...Not my finer moments of mommy hood. 

So it was in one of these moments of grumbling about cleaning up flower and weed dust remains in the food prep area of the kitchen, that God smacked me up side the head.

Everything we have in life is a gift from God.  He is constantly providing and proving His love and favor for us.  Just like my daughter in leaving the flowers around the house for me.

We readily accept His gifts when they are beautiful and come how we expect them.  But when our gifts don't come how we expect or turn messy and become a problem...we sometimes reject His gifts....His love. 

So in that moment of grumbling, I decided to change my attitude about my daughter's flowers when they turned messy or caused a problem.   Slowly, my attitude changed and now, I find I can't bring myself to toss them out.  I find no matter how messy, all I see is my little girl's love for me.

The other day, I decided to let her know just how special those little gifts of love and favor mean and I drew her a picture of her giving me one of her flowers and my loving response to her gift.  I handed her the picture as my own token of affection and love for her being her beautiful self.  By giving her that picture, was another "small-big" way for me to show my love and appreciation for God's biggest and truest gift in this story... my daughter. 

That is Artful Living! 

Challenge: What gifts have you received from God that were easy to love and appreciate?  What gifts from God have turned sour or came to you a mess?  Is there a way for you to see them as a gift?  Can you express, outwardly, your gratitude, joy, and appreciation of these gifts from God?