A day at a time - more lessons from Cactus Flowers

This year of 2020 for most people across the globe has been one of unexpected changes. From one day to the next many places have not known whether the morning news will announce a new 'lockdown' or protocols for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our own personal lives this year have also had some extra 'one day at a time' contexts in addition to the COVID-19 issues, including a situation that placed great uncertainty from one day to the next whether we would have to move house or not.  Each day taught me a 'refresher course' in making the most of enjoying the beauty of the Botswana bush around me, the twinkling of city lights at night in the distance, the clarity of the stars above my head, and the perfect layout of our current house for my health limitations.

Right now the change of seasons is at its peak, when the bush goes from the trees all looking totally dead and 'leafless', as it transforms from 'brown' to 'green' with all the new growth on the trees.

It is also the season when the Cactus flowers bloom in our garden. The last couple of years we have enjoyed a few flowers bloom, though not as profuse as some years back.  

But this year, was a bumper-bloom!

More than 30 flowers came out all at once!  A spectacular greeting one overcast morning!

But once again these flowers had a lesson to teach me…..as they only last about a day.  And then they are gone.

All that beauty….just for a day!

Yes.

But they are so beautiful, even though they bloom only for a day.

And even more beautiful for having a few raindrops still lingering on the ends of their petals.

God could have thought "oh well those flowers will only be around for a day so they don't need too much beauty or extra care to make".  But he didn't. He made them just as beautiful (or maybe more beautiful) for their short life. They are perfectly crafted and delicately formed….all the more astounding as they come out of the most prickly little lumps in our whole garden.

Such lessons for me once again…..to value each day, rejoice in each day, treat each day as important and worth investing in, each day requires God's hand, and is filled with his goodness and love. 

Then there is the reminder that out of ordinary lumps of life and even prickly lumps of life can come some of the most beautiful and amazing experiences.

Neither short time-spans or prickly, painful, ordinary areas of life are the measure of beauty or value or delight. To dismiss life's awkward or difficult parts or hurry through a day like its just a figure on a calendar, means we risk missing out on the blessings God wants to fill our lives with!

Such are some of the lessons of the Cactus flower!