Recently a group of friends and I were discussing our favourite flowers. About half of us said that tulips were one of our favourites. It’s very difficult to choose just one.
I love all the bright colours: red, pink, purple, yellow, and when mixed together I personally think they are hard to beat. The colours all represent different things. The pink ones are for happiness and confidence, the purple for royalty, the yellow for cheerful thoughts and the white for forgiveness.
Tulips are a good flower to use at Easter. They grow from a bulb which has been hidden in the earth and can be representative as coming back to life from the dead, giving hope to all.
Tulips continue to grow when they have been cut. (I think they are the only cut flowers to do this, but I may be wrong). They open out their petals and start off straight and upright. After a while they become less upright and start to bend and droop. Finally, the petals drop off and they die, but even as the petals wither and curl there is a beauty to them. I do not discard mine until practically the final petal has fallen.
Sometimes I think of people as being similar to tulips. We are born from darkness, we grow from being carried to walking upright and straight and in our later years we can bend and droop a bit, but even then, we have our uses.
Heavenly Father, thank you for the beauty of all your flowers. Help us to remember to look after our world and may we, like your flowers, continue to grow in love and share this love with others.
Amen.