There are times when I feel past my prime; when the devil tries to convince me that my days of making a contribution to the world are long gone. My children are grown, I'm retired from my "paying" job, and there are days I'm sure I'll never see my work in print again. And then I look down--down at the faces of my precious grandchildren, at the pebbles beneath my feet, at the untold number of grains of sand on the beach, and in this case, at the flowing water in which another kind of beauty abounds--sometimes noticed, sometimes not. Nevertheless, it's there. Down there.
I spotted this pink beauty the other day while on a mission to photograph the wildflowers growing along the roadside here on base. Just as I was wrapping up my session, I happened to notice a spot of color in the water of Ship Creek, a stream that flows through the base, through Anchorage and out to the Cook Inlet. Floating on the current and caught against a rock in a small eddy was this lone blossom spending its last days of glory floating in the river.
It reminded me that it's never too late to bloom, that we're never too old to make a contribution, that paying jobs aren't always the most rewarding. Finally, perhaps the assignments we've been given by God can't be accomplished until we've accrued enough knowledge, wisdom, and patience to do the job correctly.
Maybe this flower bloomed unseen alongside hundreds of others and I would never have noticed it in the crowd. It's likely I'm the only human being to have witnessed its voyage down Ship Creek and it's possible that it was merely a coincidence that I spotted it at the exact moment it was trapped in the eddy.
But I don't think so. I think God used this one blossom, this little pink flower spending its last hours on its way to a watery grave, to show me that it's never too late. Never.
See you along the trail...
