I was outside enjoying an unexpected cooler morning, and watering my flowers when I turned the corner and noticed a vine had grown up to the outside faucet. The vine had pretty little purple flowers and was quite an unexpected surprise. I called my daughter outside to see it because I didn’t think the boys would properly appreciate it’s beauty.

My daughter came out to see what I had to show her, and -as predicted- thought the vine was beautiful. She asked, “What kind of flower is it?” That’s when it happened. I can’t even believe it now as I am recalling it. I said,

“I don’t know, it’s some kind of weed.”

My answer stopped me in my tracks, and instantly I was returned to my childhood.

Isn’t it great how that happens sometimes? Well, sometimes it’s great…

I loved picking flowers and making small bouquets for my mom. I can remember our backyard being covered in a sea of tiny, periwinkle blue, four petal flowers. They were small, delicate, and prolific. I loved them, pick them, and put them in tiny bottles of water for my mother. That is, until my dad decided to cut the grass in our backyard.

In a matter of minutes my blue babies were gone! I was so disappointed. When I complained about my great loss, I was told they were only weeds and the grass had to be cut.

And that was that.

It was the first time I learned that some flowers where flowers, and some were mere weeds. I had a hard time distinguishing the two. I mean, to me, the weeds were just as pretty as the flowers. I can remember asking over and over about different blooms, “Is this a weed?” My mom, garden club lady she is, was always able to make the distinction. Somehow.

At some point in my life I explored this thought a little bit further. I think people have decided which blooms get to be called valuable and which get to be cut down as weeds. I don’t think, when God forms these beauties, that He makes any such distinction. Each bloom He creates is beautiful in His sight. They are all treasures in his mind.

We don’t stop at flowers with this distinction stuff.

We often judge people in the same way we judge a flower from a weed. We decide in our own minds who is valuable, worthy, or important, and who we can cast aside as unimportant.

We place a certain value on another life based on some individual, internal set of criterion, and depending on how a person measures up, we decide how much of an investment they are worth.

What if we thought about it another way, God’s way? If we were able to do that, every bloom in sight would be worthy of our bouquets, every person worthy of hearing about the love of Christ. Every one would be valuable. There would be no criteria to meet, no scale by which we measured others. The only question we’d have to ask that matters is- Are they a brother or sister in Christ yet, or not?

I love one of the lines in the song, Forgiven, by Sanctus Real. It goes:

“When I don’t fit in, and I don’t feel like
I belong anywhere…
When I don’t measure up to much in this life
I’m a treasure in the arms of Christ”

Truth is, if we are honest, we are all weeds. It’s only when God gathers us into His bouquet do we truly become something beautiful.