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Beauty in a Box

  The work of a floral designer can be perceived as dreamy and romantic. The truth is, it’s really not like that at all.  It’s a satisfying form of creativity and just like any other art form, a great deal happens before the “beautiful” emerges. What isn’t seen is the messy process that precedes the beautiful outcome. If you’ve ever worked in a floral shop, you know what I mean. Flowers arrive to a shop packed in boxes. They are strategically and protectively arranged to protect and preserve them from damage while in transit. If mishandled, flowers can be bruised. The job of the floral designer begins here. The goal? To carefully unpack the flowers and transfer them to another safe place, a cylinder container filled with fresh water. Before the stems are submerged in water though, essential things need to happen. As the flowers are unpacked, the stems are cleaned, then given a generous new cut. This is done so that when they’re put in a bucket of water, they can “drink up”. The new

Finding Life Among the Living

I recently clipped a flowering branch off a tree in our yard.   I thought I could keep it blooming so that I could take a photo of it.   Within minutes, cut away from the branch and without water, it wilted.   The photo opportunity faded. The beauty of the branch was gone as the life it held evaporated.   And so, it is with us.   Can we truly live if we are cut off from the vine?   If we are separated from God, where do we go to get life?   Where do we go to stay alive?   To have breath and to live in the splendor and truth of how we’ve been created ?    The blooms on the branch looked radiant while attached to the tree.   The collective display was grand, a picture of its purpose.   It reflected beauty, grace and God’s glory in nature. Then I looked at the wilted branch I had collected and the flowers on it. They were dead. In Luke 24:1-7, we read about the women who went to Jesus’ tomb and when they arrived, found the tomb empty. … very early on Sunday morning t