Little Things

 I received a beautiful bouquet of roses from a friend, so I put them up on the counter to enjoy. Eventually the roses faded and died so I took the vase from the counter and proceeded to throw them away.

As I grabbed the bouquet, I realized that although the roses had died, the babies breath (the tiny white flowers) that had also shared the vase were still fresh! Why throw away the whole thing when there was still so much beauty to appreciate?

I pulled out the babies breath, freshened the water and put the vase back on the counter to enjoy. Funny how no one ever orders a bouquet of babies breath, yet they are so beautiful in and of themselves. As I looked at these precious delicate flowers, I thought what a shame it was that they never took the center stage of the bouquet. They are never considered the starring role, but seem to always be cast as the supporting role; yet they serve such an important purpose. They enhance the beauty of any cluster of flowers. They created a beautiful backdrop for the roses, helping them to stand upright by framing each one. They gave the bouquet fullness and life.

Why am I going on about flowers? Because as I looked at the babies breath alone in the vase, and their stand alone beauty, I thought about the church. I thought about ministry. I thought about all the behind the scene roles that never seem to make center stage. The things that don’t get advertised on the church website or seen on Sunday morning.

The caring phone call to someone whose been sick. The dropping off of food for someone recovering from surgery. The thoughtful card put in the mail just to brighten someone’s day. The simple things that tend to mean so much.

We sometimes think “church” is all about the Sunday morning “event”. The music and the singing and the message……The roses.

And that’s part of it. But what we forget is the babies breath of ministry. The beautiful things that hold the church together and really make it beautiful. If we’re not careful we can throw the whole bouquet away when any of the main things don’t look the way we want them to.

We’ve had to throw away our previous ways of doing church this past year……but I don’t see an empty vase. I see the remaining babies breath, still up on the counter to bring beauty. The ways in which the “church” has become so much more than a Sunday morning event. The way it has pushed us to be intentional and creative. The way we’ve been shown to see beauty in the simple instead of the elaborate. To appreciate the tiny details of purpose and thought rather than just the grand expressions of our faith.  A reminder to always look more closely to see the tiny white flowered blessings right in front of us.