Dried Flowers

this one is a special one from my mother Flo Campbell...writing runs in the family.

Some people in my office take a curious second look at me when they catch me rummaging through the office trash.  I was only removing what is left of a once beautiful arrangement.    Women in upper management receive the best floral designs.  Okay, okay I don’t do this often – only once or twice a year.  We recycle everything so these items are placed in a relatively clean receptacle. After the flowers they received have wilted and the miscellaneous buds start to drop off, the whole bouquet is tossed in the trash.  I could never do that.  I never have.  I never will.

Anyway, for years now, I’ve salvaged the most beautiful woody stems which make the best fillers and accents. I’ve created some of the most memorable arrangements this way, often returning these arrangements to the very person that tossed the flowers in the trash. 

During a lunchtime ride today, I was thinking about how I wanted to be remembered after God has called me back to himself.   Will it be for my singing, my praise, my contribution to the Sunday school lesson, my hugs or my kisses?  I wonder what people will remember as I journey toward the end of my life.  I also wonder what people in general will think after they notice that my hair has lost it’s luster and the gray has creped in, or the once strong spine has weakened causing my shoulders and head to slope forward – much like the flowers I find in the trash.  Will they see no usefulness?

I pray that I will be remembered in the same way that I used the vibrant dried flowers that I pulled from the trash.  I want to be remembers as an accent that returned joy to a broken heart or life to someone who has almost given up.  I want to be remembered as vividly as the yellow dried roses and purple statice or sea lavender that I rescued from recycling. 

I study everything – no matter how it looks and appreciate the fact that it contributes to the beauty of my surroundings.  That’s how I want to be remembered.