A Bouquet of Blessings
 

“He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love.” Zephaniah 3:17 Folks, I am willing to admit it I love flowers. Yes the same man who loves motorcycles, football, basketball, dogs, and mountain biking , but l also really likes flowers. With this in mind here is an interesting mental exercise for you. Suppose for a moment on the window sill of your picture window is one solitary daisy. This morning you picked the daisy and pinned it on your lapel. But as soon as you’re out the door, people start picking petals off your daisy.  Someone snags your place in a traffic line—either on the roadway or at grocery store checkout.  Petal picked. You’re blamed for something you had nothing to do with…another petal picked.  You’re once again inconvenienced by a friend. cancelling a social engagement you had looked forward to—more petals. By the end of the day….you’re only one petal snatching away from a blowup.

 

What if the scenario were altered significantly? A kind neighbor next door to you works at a Flower shop. Every night on the way home he stops at your place and gives you a fresh bouquet. Because of him, your home has sweet fragrance, and your step has a little more bounce. Let someone mess with your flower, and you’ve got a basketful to replace it! When our senses and gratitude’s are truly alive we see that God hand-delivers a bouquet to your door each day. The bouquet comes in the form of many varied blessings. It’s important to not just look at the bouquet but to examine the individual flowers within the vase.

 

For me, one flower in the bouquet is the breath I take, every beat of my heart, every step I take, every sight, every sound, every note of music I hear. Another flower in the bouquet is all the wonderful people I have the privilege of knowing, the blessing of being able to make a living doing what I enjoy. I thank God for the beautiful places I have lived and gotten to see. I thank God for all the beautiful horses and horse farms in Lancaster County—for the beautiful sound of “click-clack--click clack” of horse hoofs on the back roads of this lovely county. I thank God for the early morning air and the way a hard rain sounds on my roof. I thank God for the thousands of miles I’ve traveled on two wheels in exhilaration and relative safety…accompanied by astounding beauty and untold adventure. I am grateful for the beauty of a quiet and gentle snowfall which makes the world slow down. I thank God for the bounty of the Thanksgiving Table—and a refrigerator full of options. Another flower in my bouquet is a church full of worshippers praising God in song and prayer each Sunday.

 

Here is my prayer to the Great Giver of the Bouquet of Life: Dear God, today I woke up. I am alive, I am blessed. I apologize for all my complaining. I am truly grateful for all you have done in my life. Sometimes I just look up, smile and say, “I know that was you, God !” Thanks.