Daylilies of the soul

I noticed it recently while visiting one of my grandchildren. Somehow, without me realizing it, that little child I remembered now stood nearly a head taller than me. I could no longer hold him in my arms quite the same way, and if he were to sit with me in our favorite chair there would hardly be room for comfort anymore. The growth did not happen overnight. It happened little by little in ordinary days until suddenly a young man was standing where a child once stood. The thought of that still tugs at my heartstrings.
His parents probably never saw the change quite the same way because they were blessed to see him every day. I suppose that is true of many things. We often fail to notice gradual change when we live beside it every day. Children grow taller. Parents grow older. And all the while time quietly keeps moving forward as changes gently unfold around us.
It is not only people who change. It happens in the commonplace parts of life that surround us every day. Driveways become overgrown. Fence rows slowly disappear beneath vines and brush. What once looked neat and open gradually becomes crowded, and because the change happens little by little, we hardly notice it at all. Then a new set of eyes comes along and draws our attention to what we missed seeing every day.
I was reminded of this recently at a place of worship. A new member noticed the overgrowth along the driveway and began trimming it back. What had become crowded and unnoticed suddenly looked fresh, open, and inviting. But the real beauty of his effort was not simply in what had been cleared away. It was in what appeared days later. Beneath years of tangled brush and creeping vines, a daylily had been waiting for the light to come. Once the overgrowth was cleared away, it opened its bloom heavenward.
It made me wonder how many beautiful things remain hidden beneath seasons of neglect, busyness, hurt, or simply the overgrowth that slowly gathers around the heart. Perhaps this was true of the paralytic man lying beside the Pool of Bethesda. For thirty-eight years he had become part of the unnoticed landscape until one day Jesus walked by and saw the beauty beneath the brokenness (John 5).
The same could be said of the woman Jesus encountered while teaching in the synagogue. There she stood, bent over for eighteen years. People had grown accustomed to seeing her burdened beneath the weight she carried. Yet Jesus saw her. And with a word He lifted the heaviness that had bowed her low and caused her to stand upright in His presence (Luke 13). From the paralyzed man to the bent-over woman, the beauty of Scripture is that God not only sees us, but gently lifts the burdens we were never meant to carry alone.
Maybe we are all a little like that hidden daylily. Beneath the overgrowth there is still something beautiful waiting to bloom. Sometimes all it takes is for the tangled places to be cleared away so the light can reach what has been there all along. And even when it becomes hidden from the eyes around us, it is never hidden from God. For the truest parts of you are not gone. They are simply waiting to awaken again in His presence.
She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me (Genesis 16:13).

Cheryl Mixon-Cruce is Pastor of Ochlockonee Bay United Methodist Church and Sopchoppy United Methodist Church.