California Poppies
Earrings: Bauble Bar (similar) | Sunglasses: Nordstrom (similar)
Top: (I bought this top and skirt at a small shop in my area and I can't find them anywhere online - so sorry!)
The California poppies sure are showing off this year, thanks to all the rain we've had this winter/spring. I grew up near the California Poppy Reserve and each year has been different as far as blooms -- sometimes almost nothing, some years orange fire blooms cover the hills! The season poppies come up has always symbolized new beginnings and redemption to me -- springtime does, of course. I always think of this verse:
My beloved speaks and says to me:
“Arise, my love, my beautiful one,
and come away,
for behold, the winter is past;
the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtledove
is heard in our land.
- Song of Solomon 2:10-12, ESV
Whenever I step into a field of flowers or swim in some warm, crystal clear ocean somewhere, I feel healing. The Lord is so good to create flowers, rolling fields and hills, sparkling water, pink sunsets, for our enjoyment, for our hearts... I've been thinking a lot about healing, lately. And the ways we walk through pain and loss, disappointment and heartache, only to come out on the "other side" with healing offered to us in His hand.... whether we take it or not and walk it out (because I have learned we don't "get over" those hard things, we must "get through" them, and most of them we never really "get over", we just move forward, and He heals us, and the scar stands still always as a reminder of His strength, our story, our hope) it is there for the taking. It can be so easy to "live in it", though, isn't it? I'm the type of personality who doesn't avoid my emotions and feelings, but I delve neck-deep into the mire of it all, and feel it over and over and over, and cry it out until there are no more tears to be had, and talk it out until I am blue in the face, then do it again! And this isn't necessarily bad, to work through pain, to write it out, sing it out, scream it out, cry it out, talk it out... but, there comes I time, I am finding, where we must bury the loss and move on. Not that we cannot come back to it's resting place, with a bouquet of flowers and a tear; often, even. But, there comes a time to move on, move forward, to stop living in the bad memory, the disappointment, the regret, the loss, the "why...?" and just open our hands, receive healing and love, and choose joy. I am so thankful for hope, for new beginnings, for spring, for flowers blooming again and again, each year, faithfully.
Just random thoughts! I pray you find healing in whatever heart-hurt you face (we all have something that stings) and focus on the joy, look for the good, and dance in the fields of wildflowers! You are loved. Oh so loved.
Thank you for readings, sweet friend. It means so much to me!