There are times in your life when you stumble upon something so beautiful and unusual that you just have to share it with the world. You often wonder how something so unique came to be, or how the object in question could ever thrive given its circumstances.
I found myself wondering this exact thing while pulling up to Town Hall at the Lake to pay my water bill last week. Sitting at each corner at the end of the building sat two white flower pots distressed with age. One was empty with only a little dirt remaining, while the other sat proud and full of colorful flowers. It was neither flower pot that held my attention, but the carpet of beauty that had sprang from the cracks in the concrete that pulled my eyes to the ground.
Annuals were spread everywhere they were able to reach. The conditions were not favorable for the growth of these beauties, but here they were for the world to see. Here they were, announcing their will to survive, and overcome the impossible despite the odds.
It reminded me a lot of the underdogs in this world. We were not all supplied with resources to go out and make a way for ourselves. Many of us came from nothing, but we just knew that we wanted to be something.
We wanted to be educated. We wanted to own homes. We wanted a stable family. We wanted to live without wondering where our next meal was going to come from. We wanted to beat those impossible odds that told us we weren’t enough, and we came from the wrong circumstances. We were told we couldn’t make it, and we would never amount to anything so why bother?
Yet we had the will to thrive.
Those flowers in the sidewalk were left without soil and battered by sun and rain. They had been considered unworthy, and not worth saving, but here they sat with their faces turned toward the sun.
People are a lot like that. We come from poverty as children, but we study hard and pay attention in school. We graduate and work our way through college. We work menial jobs to pay off our student loans. We earn our degrees, and we focus on the future. We never give up in hopes that one day, we too can turn our faces towards the sun. We may have survived this world without what we wanted, but by the grace of God we gained what we needed. We became something, and we became someone to be proud of.
Never underestimate the beauty of the flowers in the sidewalk.
Philippians 4:19
