Hans said it best...

"Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower." Hans Christian Anderson

That little flower can mean the difference between a good day and a bad day sometimes. Ever wonder why we give flowers at funerals, holidays and at the birth of a child? The language and meaning of flowers has changed over the years, but it still a poignant gesture that no matter the occasion is fraught with meaning.

Drawing daisies in my notebooks at school, receiving one as a token of affection, seeing them grow wild by the side of the road have always brightened my day. Even through tears of pain and loss I looked at flowers with a small smile. It's is something alive. Something growing all on it's own. It needs a little water, a place to grow, some sun and time and from a plain tiny seed evolves this thing of beauty. Sometimes magnificence. We are not much different. A good foundation, some SON, time, a place to grow and we become a thing of beauty. A thing of magnificence ourselves.

Tiny flowers dot the side of the highway, a playground, the cracks in the sidewalk. Huge flowers grow in the jungles where the wild things are and survive to see the light of day and provide shade to the smaller entities the live nearby. Flowers grow in pots on porches, in homes hanging from the ceiling and botanical gardens where people pay to see them. Even if you don't really like flowers or are allergic to them you cannot in good conscience ignore them. They are everywhere and their purpose? To bring us beauty and to show us that left alone to do what they must,  they will become exactly what they were intended to be.

God has given us so much more than he gives the flowers of the earth. A mind, heart and soul. All these things must be nourished, fed and cared for just like a flower and we will blossom. Ever pick up a dandelion and pull the petals from it asking that all important question, "Do they love me or do they love me not?" We decorate our world with flowers and the world outside of us is decorated with people. For every species of flora around us there a hundred people more beautiful than each petal.

I struggle each and every day to remind myself that I deserve to be here, that I deserve a chance to live and flourish. Like a Lotus I have risen from the muck and grime. I'm ready to be plucked up and appreciated. Not by anyone in particular, but just because I exist. I have my good days. I have my bad days, but I always have a will to keep going. Every time I pass a flower I am reminded of this. I stop to smell the roses. I pick a few for a bouquet and give them away. In my own way I am a special flower and I give myself as a gift to my friends if they will have me. Like Hans said in order to live I need sunshine, freedom and a little flower.