This story came to my mind completely and instantly, as I was preparing for yesterday's service. I hesitate to claim it was from God, but it seemed to touch a lot of people anyway. Here it is:
There was a man who loved God and who also loved flowers. He loved all kinds of flowers, but his favourites were the small, delicate blue flowers called forget-me-nots. They reminded him of God and heaven, and the man thought they were probably God's favourites too. The man moved to a house which had a rather bare garden with no flowers. As he went to bed on his first night at the new house he prayed that he would be able to work with God to grow beautiful flowers in the garden.
That very night, God answered the man's prayer, and when the man opened his curtains in the morning he saw that the garden was covered with beautiful flowers of every colour and variety you could imagine. The man rejoiced and thanked God. Then after breakfast the man found his scissors and a pot of blue paint and went out into the garden. He worked with great care for several hours, painting and trimming the flowers. Finally he stood back and looked at his garden full of forget-me-nots and rejoiced.
And God looked at the garden and wept. And God's tears fell on the garden and tried to wash away the blue paint. But they couldn't, because the man had used waterproof paint. That night the man went to sleep, satisfied with his day's work. But unfortunately, all the flowers which had been painted blue died. And when the man got up in the morning he noticed that some flowers had died. He also noticed that some of the naturally blue flowers which had not been forget-me-nots were beginning to grow back into their original shape. He made a note that he would have to bring his scissors and trim them again. But sadly, during the course of the day, all the flowers in the garden shrivelled and died.
In his sadness, the man walked to the end of his garden and leant over the garden wall. And as his tears fell onto the ground outside the garden wall, tiny buds opened and new flowers of every variety and colour began to open.
It seems as though we see our task as to flatten out the differences between people. Differences which God has built in for a reason. So when we try to make everyone the same and bring them into line we may actually be working against God. And that's not a clever thing to do.
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Hi Andrew,
ReplyDeleteThat is both a beautiful story, and has both a sad side and a happy side. And it is very very real!
I have just read it again.
As I read I saw all the beautiful flowers of different colours, and the man collecting his paint brush and painting them all blue and cutting them to the same shape, I was taken back nearly forty years. Mao did exactly that all the hugely varied people of China wearing the same shapeless blue workers overalls and jackets, the women´s hair trimmed in the shape of an upside down saucepan without the handle. And though the color may have been different was it not so similar in the Soviet bloc, and now in North Korea. But vast millions and millions of the people died from famine and just the handful of men as the man in your story were left with impoverished arid lands denying all that is good, loveless peoples, God banished from His children. And yet in China the door was opened and in the West those who looked over the Wall saw the flowers had prospered; there was freedom and colours and all shapes and sizes and people praising God. And the wall was broken. And the whole world started a new course.