“What is the expiration date on dandelions?”

Does anyone know?

I ask because I was given a handful of them as a gift from my seventeen month old granddaughter Fallon the other day when I was sitting on the front steps of my mother-in-law’s house drinking a cup of coffee and eating a piece of cake.

And now, they are wilting and losing their once bright yellow color.

Fallon and I had been eating a piece of cake together when all of a sudden she left the remaining cake and went towards the boulevard to pick a dandelion with her mother.

After she picked the dandelion, she turned to find me by calling out; “Pa” (that’s the name she calls me as her grandpa) and walked over with a big smile on her face and handed the dandelion to me. And my heart was touched!

The irony to this story is that just the week prior to this I had applied fertilizer on the lawn at my own house to kill the dandelions BEFORE they could emerge. But these were  not weeds to me, but “flowers” given as a gift from a little girl to her “Pa”.

Fallon repeated this process of walking to the boulevard, picking a dandelion, calling out “Pa”, and walking over to hand me another dandelion until I had a small bouquet of dandelions; and one violet. She smiled at me when I put them into a button hole in my shirt; and then requested another bite of cake. And then went to play with her mom.

And then I wondered; “What is the expiration date on dandelions?”

Now, I’m not new to being the recipient of dandelions given to me as a sign of affection. As a father, I had experienced the joy of receiving dandelion “flowers” from my own children and watching their faces as they gave them to me. When my own children were young, we seemed to always have vases full of them during the dandelion growing season. And, eventually, we would discard them; usually to re-fill the vases with a fresh batch.

But these dandelion “flowers” from Fallon were the first ones that I received from one of my grandchildren; and because of that, these were extra special. So, after Fallon went home, I removed the dandelions from the button hole in my shirt and placed them in a plastic bag to take home with me until I could figure out what to do with them.

So today, my question then and now is; “What is the expiration date on dandelions?”

Something inside of me can’t seem to simply toss them into the trash because of the value I see in them as precious flowers instead of as weeds to be discarded. Perhaps it is because of the love of God has shown me the value of my own life and has also opened my eyes to look at people and see the “flowers” hidden behind those who the world would consider to be simply “weeds”.

God has created every one of us in His image; we are “flowers”, not “weeds”. And that is true whether we know that or not, whether we love Him or not; whether we obey Him or not. The Bible clearly says that; “God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27).

That means that we are flowers, not weeds.

That is not to say that just because we are made in His image that He approves of everything that we do; that kind of theology is ridiculous and contradicts what the Bible clearly says that all of us “have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Perhaps that is why we feel some days more like a weed rather than a flower.

So how do you see yourself today? Have those around you convinced you that you are nothing more than a dandelion to bloom and then be tossed into the trash? Or as a precious flower that reflects the handiwork of One who skillfully, masterfully created you as a display of His love and affection.

Today can be the day that it all changes for you. Visit www.PeaceWithGod.net

"Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved."