Beautiful In Its Time

Pictured above is a bloom from one of my Ornamental/Flowering Quince shrubs.  Most of the time, I despise them.  The limbs are stiff and thorny which makes them difficult to prune. They attract vines that are almost impossible to remove and they're hard to mow around without coming away with scratched arms and gouged eyeballs.  As much of a nuisance as I normally find them, when they’re loaded with blooms before the leaves appear, I think they're beautiful.   

There are other things that have a similar outcome. I share a love of butterflies with my friend, Lisa. It's not uncommon for either of us to gift the other with an item featuring a butterfly, but butterflies aren't always pretty.  In fact, depending on how you feel about worms, they can go through a pretty unsightly stage before they transform into the colorful creatures that catch your attention as they flutter by. This process doesn’t happen overnight though, it takes time.  

There are times in life when things may be difficult to deal with for a while.  It's during those times that we have to remember to draw near to God and hold on because a better day is surely coming. In Ecclesiastes 3, we're told there is a time and a season for everything.  The first eight verses give examples of such things. Verse 11 is my favorite because it says that He has made everything beautiful in its time. It goes on to say...Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 

I had never paid much attention to the last part of that verse before because you usually only see the first part of it quoted.  I had to really study and think about what it meant. In layman's terms, I think it means this... Sometimes we can see the beginning and ending of situations with our own eyes… A time to be born and a time to die, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a bare prickly shrub later loaded with beautiful flowers, or an ugly worm morphing into a magnificent butterfly.  Other times, we may never see the end results.  God is the only one that can see everything from the beginning of creation to all of eternity.  Regardless, we have to trust Him and understand that He always has the situation under control and things will work out in His timing, not ours. 

Enjoy these pictures of Lisa’s flowers and butterflies:

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.  -Ecclesiastes 3:11

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