You are God's Picture

A picture.

A picture that shows God's glory.

A friend posted a suggestion on Facebook for people to comment with a photo of something showing God's glory.

The pictures I saw were of sunrises, sunny skies, flowering tulips, sunbeams shining through the window to light up a room. 

All beauty.

All displaying the creativeness, the splendor, the healing power, the glory of God.

And then I looked out my window.

Overcast.

Dreary.

And it started to snow. 

It is April now. Spring. People don't want the white stuff anymore.

But here it is.

I almost laughed.

God's glory?
What kind of picture could I possibly post?

And there it was in my backyard garden.

The tulips.

Rising from the dirt.

From the dead leaves still laying on the soil as a blanket for winter insulation.

Rising from the frosty, hard place.

Now being dusted with cold snow. 

It is so easy to look in someone else's backyard and see their sunshine and flowers.
It is so easy to fall into the thinking that someone else's backyard is better.
Is easier.

Is more beautiful.

Is more full of sunshine and hope.

It is so easy to wish for a piece of someone else's backyard.

It would be nicer. 

It would be more comfortable.

It would give me more value.

But we forget that someone else's backyard may not have always been sunshine and flowering tulips.

That they too, at some point, have had a bleak backyard view. 

And that they too, have the opportunity to see God's glory in anything.

Even in the dark, the dreary; even in the struggle; even in the cold, the hard.

And we can rise up through that dirty place, strong, determined, hopeful.

Hopeful for what's to come.

My tulips will continue to grow.
The cold snow won't stop them.

They will rise up, fight through, have victory.

Why?

How?

Because they were created to.

Because it was built into them to rise up and fulfill their purpose. 

You too.

Me too. 

So rise up, dear tulips!

Let your beauty shine through the ugly times, through the hard, through the pain, through the dirt and dead leaves. 

Rise up, because you have purpose, you have value, you have beauty.

Because you are a picture that shows God's glory. 

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands." (Psalm 19:1, NIV)