Sunday Among the Lupines

Last week my mom and I went off on the great lupine hunt, which has now become an annual summer tradition. There is a place about an hour from where we live where beautiful patches of lupines carpet the hillsides in the summer. I guess this year and last year my mom and I were a bit eager, because we went in May and the lupines weren't quite as numerous as we had hoped!

However, we were still able to find some of these beautiful flowers, and one of the pictures my mom took has become this season's main picture here on my blog. (Summer has come a little early to "Seasons of Humility," I suppose! But this is a wonderful season to enjoy, and since Camp Humility starts tomorrow, it seems like this is a good time to welcome summer!)

In the Seasons of Humility, summer represents a time in one's life when one is humbly following God and trusting in His guidance and purpose, through His grace. It is a season full of hope and joy. I want this literal summer's blog design to remind us of this "season of humility."

One book I have had for a while is called A Handful of Flowers by Cookie Lee. This book discusses the various meanings of flowers and is full of lovely pictures and poetry/quotes. The symbolic meaning of the lupine flower is "imagination," and it is listed under the category "Ambition & Success." How very fitting for summer!

What I mean is that "imagination" is fitting both for the literal and symbolic summer. In the literal summer, all the colors of creation, all the vacation time in the sunshine, and all the reading (and writing, etc.) time is an open invitation to use our imaginations and to celebrate creativity--both God's creativity, as well as the creativity He has given us!

And in the symbolic summer of humility, when we are humbly walking with God there is so much "scope for the imagination," as Anne of Green Gables might say. ;) Ponder these words of Scripture:

"I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well." ~ Psalm 139:14

"Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen." ~ Ephesians 3:20-21

God's creativity and purposes are beyond what we can ever imagine! Note Ecclesiastes 8:17--

"Then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun: because though a man labour to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea farther; though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it."

I found this quote on Goodreads from Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery that sums it up so well:

"Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive--it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for imagination then, would there?"

May this season's blog design encourage you to use your imagination for God's glory and to praise Him for this mysterious, amazing life He has given us! In Jesus we can have hope for an eternal life with God that is beyond all imagination!