The Flower - a parable

            The summer season had been hotter than previous years.  The heat had beat down on the earth in harsh burning waves.  And then the rains had come with what seemed like hurricane force on the small flower in the garden bed.  The roots of the small flower had almost been washed out of the dirt as it streamed away in wide rivers of rushing currents.  It seemed like wide rivers of currents to the small flower who was holding on with a desperate nature to any dirt it could manage to keep. 

And so what seemed like a harsh season of summer finally subsided into fall with cooler temperatures.  The sky began to soften and so did the dirt.  The flower settled into the garden and began to finally grow and prosper.  Buds began to sprout.  The color of the flower began to turn vibrant shades of orange in coordination with the season of thankfulness.  The flower and all the adjoining buds reached toward the heavens and to the sun in praise and adoration each morning. 

Then one day, the earth began to grow nearby.  It seemed to grow from underneath and to be pushed upward from the depths below.  The flower stared in amazement as the dirt pushed higher and outward.  Suddenly, the dirt began to move.  No, it wasn’t the dirt.  It was small creatures coming out of the earth and crawling all over the ground nearby and very close to the flower.  The flower began to panic unnecessarily.  What is the point of panic when you can’t actually do anything about it?  

Now more quickly than the mound of earth had appeared, the small creatures began to pour out of it and climb to the top reaches of the flower.  A feeling of complete helplessness overcame the flower who then turned to the heavens and pleaded with the life-giving sun for help and preservation. 

            With the flower’s intent focus on the plea of supplication, the gardener went unnoticed as He carefully and strategically attacked the Enemy at the core of the mound.  The small creatures began to retreat, to cease their violent attack, and to quit their existence.  In a day or two the mound of earth was resettled into the garden just as it had been before, and everything was returned to right. 

            The flower continued to follow the sun from early in the morning toward the east and all the way to the west in the evening by raising its petals upward in gratitude and by training the buds to do likewise.