"One Tulip"

Last year I had two nice rows of big, beautiful red and yellow tulips. This year, I have one small, but pretty yellow tulip. That's it...just one. It appears that something ate the others. Every time I look at my front yard I think, "I wish the other tulips would have bloomed." I was thinking that just the other day as I pulled out of the garage..."I wish the other tulips would have bloomed." Then, it hit me...something inside of me said, "Why can't you enjoy the one you have?" Its true. Apparently, I needed the others to enjoy the one. Why? Why couldn't I let the other tulips go, accept that they were not going to bloom and simply enjoy that single, pretty, yellow bloom?

I have been known to do that with more than tulips. How about you? Do you ever find yourself wishing life was like it used to be to the point that you miss out on what life is now? Do you ever long for more even though the reality is you have enough? Have you ever found yourself dwelling on all that is going wrong so much so that you cannot embrace the one thing that is going right? Do you ever miss the beauty of the little things in your pursuit for that which seems so important in the moment, but even a year for now, not to mention 100 years from now, will mean nothing? Do you ever get so focused on what you do not have, that you become blind to what you do have?

God, help us! Help us not to miss the tulips even when only one blooms. Help us not to trade what is most urgent for what is most important. Help us to celebrate what we are given instead grieving what we are not.

For someone like me, it takes a lot of intentionality and work to appreciate the one, but with God's help, each day that yellow tulip is looking better and better.

I think that was what Solomon was getting at when he wrote these words in Ecclesiastes 3:

1 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:

2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,

7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,

8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

9 What does the worker gain from his toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on men. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. 13 That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.