A Beauty to be Shared

The other night my wife and I went on a walk in our country neighborhood. It was the first day the temp had been under 90 degrees for about a week so we wanted to get out of the house and get some air that wasn't recycled.

About half a mile from our house we came upon a scene that elicited both a chuckle and a feeling of sadness at the same time. It was a house whose owners had obviously put a great deal of work into a flower garden that lay to one side of their property. It wasn't a large garden but it was exploding with beautiful color...that is... what color you could see. It would have been the perfect scene of natural beauty had it not been for a 4 foot tall metal fence that they had erected around the perimeter of the entire flower garden. It was as if the flowers had been placed in the state penitentiary. Much of the beauty of the garden had been horribly masked by the ugliness of cold steel.

It was obvious to us why they must have put up the fence. Given the mildness of the previous three winters, the critter population in the area had exploded. These well-meaning people had erected this barricade to defend their prize flowers from becoming critter salad. Flowers and shrubbery aren't cheap, and rabbits in particular can take out quite a few flower plants in short order.

I couldn't help but think that, had it been my garden, I would have tried to find some more unobtrusive way to protect my flowers. If, having found none, I think I would rather run the expense of occasionally replacing a few plants than hiding them away in Fort Knox.

You know, looking at the flower bed I couldn't help but be reminded of a casual acquaintance I had while in college. This person had qualities very similar to this garden. It took me quite a while to learn that this individual was a wonderful person on the inside. She was witty, thoughtful and enjoyable to be around. The problem was that she was terribly shy and closed up on the outside. Unless you were lucky enough to get behind the walled off exterior, you never would have the pleasure of getting to know much about her at all.

I never knew what circumstances in life caused this acquaintance of mine to shut herself off emotionally from much of the world. I have a hard time believing that she was simply born that way. Her emotional closure exceeded simple shyness. Perhaps, like the flowers in the flower bed, her leaves had been chewed on a few too many times in life. She may have been picked on or teased as a child or perhaps rejected by peers too many times as a teenager. Whatever the circumstances, they led to her to pound in the stakes and erect a practically impenetrable steel cage around her emotions.

Jesus gives some difficult instruction in Luke 6. He says in verses 27 through 31 "But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also. And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back. And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise."

I think if I were to summarize these words of Jesus it would be "don't build fences". Regardless of how people or events may hurt us we as Christians are to continue to reach out, to open ourselves up, to others. We aren't to close ourselves off from the world, regardless of how vulnerable we may feel.

I've long since lost contact with my acquaintance from college. Actually, it wasn't till I saw that fenced in garden that she came to mind. I guess there wasn't much to remember of someone who shared so little of themselves. That, in itself, is sad. I pray that she gradually was able to let down her protective fencing and let others in to share her life. I pray that she learned that to risk having a few leaves chewed on is far preferable to the lonelinesss of hiding behind an iron curtain. The work that God is doing within us is simply much too beautiful not to be shared.



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"I will meditate on Your precepts, and contemplate Your ways. I will delight myself in Your statutes; I will not forget Your word." Psalms 119:15 - 16




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