Wednesday, March 28, 2012

The Purpose of Daffodils

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that I love daffodils. In fact, I love every yellow flower. Whether the flower is bright sunshiny yellow or a pale buttery yellow, there’s just something happy about yellow flowers. I suppose if I had to pick a favorite one, though, it actually would be the daffodil.


Daffodils are the flowers for March (did you know that months had flowers? now you do), which is fine by me. Although I’m not really all that happy about having been born in a month that so many other people have been born in, March really is the happiest time to have a birthday. My own birthday is two-three days before the actual start of spring, but usually nature already thinks spring is here. My birthday is near the start of my favorite season. My birthstone is the aquamarine, which is just gorgeous, in my opinion. And my favorite flower is also my birth month flower. But that’s not why it’s my favorite flower.

Daffodils come up in late February, in March, or sometimes in early April—whenever nature decides it’s time for spring to finally come around. Whatever the calendar says, or whatever the other flowers and trees do, I always wait for the daffodils. When the daffodils come up, it’s spring. The appearance of daffodils is a sign that the long winter is over (even if this past winter wasn’t too bad at all around here, thank the Lord) and that life will be renewed.

This, combined with the happy beauty of the color, is why daffodils (and yellow flowers in general) are a symbol of hope to me. Whenever I see yellow flowers, I can’t help but feel at least a little hopeful.

The other day I was driving down the road and I saw these huge flower beds filled with daffodils. They were everywhere. I smiled as I drove past, reveling in their simple beauty, drinking in the familiar feeling of hopefulness and joy. A few minutes later, however, I drove past a patch of grass where just a few scraggly, wind-blown daffodils had grown.

There were only two or three of them. One of them was bent over. All of them had broken leaves. But as I looked at them, I realized that these few flowers were more beautiful to me than the multitude of daffodils I’d seen only moments before. The plentiful daffodils were lovely, and they made me feel happy. But the few, tattered daffodils gave me a greater sense of joy and hope.

The battered daffodils said to me:

“The world is harsh, but we still stand.”

“We are small, but we are together.”

“We aren’t strong, but we were made for a purpose.”

“We are weak, oh, but life is still renewed.”

In comparison to these few, bent flowers, the plentiful daffodils seemed almost too much, almost garish. But the daffodil is a very unpretentious flower. The plentiful ones weren’t trying to outshine the others. Both the plentiful and the few flowers did just what they were supposed to do that day—they made me think about the One who made them.

Maybe if I were a photographer, I’d have stopped and taken pictures of those flowers. But even if I’d had a decent camera with me at the time, I wouldn’t have taken any photographs that would have done those flowers justice. I’m not a photographer. I’m a writer. But my job as a writer should perform the same function as a photographer’s job, or a painter’s job, or a musician’s job, or a janitor’s job, for that matter. Our purpose is to give glory to the One who made us.

Maybe we’re standing strong in a field alongside many others, shining and beautiful and radiant. Maybe we’re standing by ourselves, slumped over by the hardship of this world.

But there is hope.

Life is being renewed.

And we were made for a purpose.

Soli Deo Gloria.

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