Tip of My Iceberg

Visiting my sisters and brother-in-law in Tucson, I’ve been struck by the unique beauty of a place that looks nothing like home.

It feels like a different planet.

Arizona landscape has cacti that are unique and native to this dry, hot climate.

How does anything grow in this weather?

While there, we walked through the Sonoran Desert and saw cacti with flowers blooming amidst the thorns. Some haven’t had blossoms for a long while; others come out only once a year. The color and location of the flowers was unexpected and exceptional.

We marveled at the distinctive look of each cacti.

We can’t grow those in Florida. We have too much rain, too many hurricanes, and too much mold to make cacti happy. We have smaller ones, but not the grand and massive ones in Arizona.

I’d like Florida to have some of those beauties.

That won’t happen,.

So often we pattern our lives after others. Influencers front products they’re given and encourage others to look like them and use whatever products they use. Advertisements seek to accomplish the same thing–using branding to draw people into buy whatever they have been paid to market.

That doesn’t work for people.

We were made to thrive. God doesn’t create failures–we choose those paths ourselves. He wants us to get to the point of feeling “We were made for this!” We’re to use who we’re uniquely made to be to help and encourage others.

We shouldn’t try to be the same as everyone. That kind of sameness should make us hesitant and fearful. We lose or diminish who we are meant to be when we look, think, and act like everyone around us.

When God created people as told in the book of Genesis, He created us in His image–not physically, but with the chance to think, to make responsible choices, and to feel deeply about all that comes into our lives.

We are different for a reason. A world made up of one type of person would not only be boring but no one would ever grow; there’d be no new discoveries.

We need to be reminded that we are made purposefully and beautifully in God’s eyes.

“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.” Ephesians 2:10

We are God’s masterpieces. Made exactly as He sees us, with beauty and glory to accomplish all the things He knows we can do. Not glory for us, but for others. To help and encourage others.

Even as family, the differences are spectacular. Raised by the same parents in the same environment, we still have grown into unique individuals. Not that there aren’t similarities among us, but it’s in the differences that we help and encourage one another.

I may not grow budding cacti like the saguaro cacti, but there are beautiful flowers that thrive in our moist, warm Florida weather.

We thrive wherever we are with the help of Jesus giving us strength to do life even in the midst of the storms. We will experience troubles, always. But the strength of Jesus in us offers us the resilience we need to keep going.

Better than a flower that will fade quickly in a short time.