Flowers for You

Today I did something I have never done before. I bought flowers for myself.  Yep, a dozen red tulips.  Now, I've bought flowers before just because I like fresh flowers when we are having friends over for dinner.  But today's purchase was different.  Today's purchase was about celebrating me.  I don't mean "me" in a selfish, conceited way.  You see, I have been reflecting lately on all the ways God has been good to me.  How He has guided me, protected me, saved me, but most of all how He made me.  He MADE me....like a potter shaping clay, He has molded me and continues to mold me.  But I am at a place now where I can see so much of His hand in my life.  Where there were hard times and difficult times, but He made them good.  I may not have seen the good at the time but I can sure see it now. 
When I was little, I sang a song at church and the lyrics were, "He's still workin' on me, To make me what I ought to be.  It took Him just  a week to make the moon and the stars, the sun and the Earth and Jupiter and Mars. How loving and caring He must be. Cause He's still workin' on me."  Thirty years later, I can say, He's still workin' on me.  But the work He has done is starting to shine through more and more. The more He shines through your life, the more life becomes less about you.  I find myself less concerned about what I should be, who I should be, or wish I was. 
As a wife, and mom, this is something that doesn't come easily.  We tend to measure ourselves against other wives and moms that appear to be doing a better job of being wives and mom.  I'm not June Cleaver! Never have been, at one time I wished I was.  Now, I just focus on being me.  I am the mom who forgets at least two things every morning and has to run back into the house to get them.  I'm the wife who has burned water a few times and hangs a towel over the smoke alarm to keep it from going off when I'm cooking.  He's still working on me! But I am being me and not worried about being more than me.  I'm moving, slowly but surely, towards becoming everything He made me to be.
When I was hurrying through the grocery store today and came to the floral section, I saw how beautiful all the flowers were and how some were just starting to bloom.  Just starting to become everything God made them to be. 
We are all wonderfully made by God to do great things and to bloom where we are planted.  Let Him continue to mold and make you.  At times the molding process isn't easy but hang in there!  When you need to be reminded that you are wonderfully made by God, abundantly blessed, loved beyond measure, granted amazing grace daily, and made to bloom where you are planted....buy yourself flowers.  When you want to celebrate who you are because of Him, and that He is still workin' on you....buy yourself flowers.  Celebrate YOU!

Philipians 2:13
for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.