The little flowers
“The love of God will protect you from nothing
even as it unexplainably sustains you in all things.”
James Finley
The girl was 15 years old when her mother died. She was unspeakably devastated, sorrow became her name and fear her constant companion. I don’t know whose idea it was, but someone thought the girl should go on a wilderness adventure to deal with her grief. So, that’s just what she did. Part of the trip was a solo overnight in the mountains of Colorado. She was trained by able guides to make the trip, but when she set out down the path all alone she knew she wouldn’t make it. She turned back and walked sheepishly up to her guides at base camp. “I can’t do it,” she said through pitiful tears. “Yes, you can,” they said as they pointed back down the trail. “Now go.”
Ever the rule follower, the girl turned and headed back into the woods.
She managed to get her tarp strung up between two small trees. After a while she got in her sleeping bag under the homemade lean two and settled in to try to sleep. She was terrified. Her terror increased when a loud and violent storm rolled in and covered the mountain in the dark of night. Lightening lit up the woods in horrific flashes and thunder seemed to shake the rocks and trees all around her and rattle her bones like death approaching. She was sure she would die in the storm. She hoped something would end her pain.
As they do, the storm eventually calmed and rolled off and away from the mountain. The sun, as it does, rose in the morning and cast its light on the girl’s campsite. She crawled slowly out of her soaking wet sleeping bag to see if she could face the new day. As she made her way up and out of her makeshift tent she crawled on all fours with her eyes cast to the ground. Just a few feet in front of her she spotted a little burst of color. “What is that?” the girl whispered to herself. She crawled over and leaned down toward the color and found herself face to face with the most beautiful, delicate little stand of white flowers she supposed God had ever made. As she crouched there face to face with the flowers a thought whispered in her head and lodged itself in her heart, “If you little flowers can make it through the storm, then so can I.” And with that she rose to take on the day.
When she told the story back she said, “Everything changed that day. My heart was still broken, my mother was gone forever, but her death would not be the defining characteristic of my life. I knew I could weather the storm. If the little flowers could, then I could too.”
The love of God did not protect the girl from the death of her mother, but the mighty radiance of the little flowers showed the girl that if she let it love would sustain her through any and every difficulty.