C.S.Lewis in Screwtape Letters has this quote in Letter 2: “In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing.”
He also makes the point of when lovers get married and begin the everydayness of living together. And so the newborn Christian begins with awe and excitement only to be faced with everyday struggles and questions of living by faith.
Everyday struggles. Everydayness. Everydayness: ordinariness as a consequence of being frequent and commonplace. This reminds me of daisies.
Long ago my grandpa gave flowers to my grandma. The flowers were white daisies and yellow roses. The yellow roses represented those golden moments in their relationship where love glowed, their life together shimmered, the fragrance of their relationship was sweet and their marriage blossomed. Days like their wedding day, the birth of their children, their major anniversaries, and the precious last night before grandpa died.
The white daisies represented the other days. The everyday days. Days when they woke up with morning breath, or sick, or grumpy, or late. Days when disasters hit both small and large. Days when they went through the motions, they did what needed to be done, breakfast, lunch, dinner, work as usual, never ending piles of laundry, chores, jobs, always more on the horizon. On those days, their love was sturdy, long lasting, and nice, comfortable.
We have days like white daisies and yellow roses in our Christian walk. The day we were saved. The day we knew we heard from God, and we actually did! The day a friend we had prayed for asked Jesus into their heart. And all the other days, when we read our bible, we ask God to bless those around us and protect our loved ones, and then we do our daily routine of work, meetings, duties and responsibilities, pleasantly knowing that he is there with us.
Daisy days are days not to be avoided or taken lightly. There are many more daisy days than rose days. This is for a reason. On daisy days we learn little by little to listen, to pray, to commune with God. We learn to live more by faith. We learn to choose God in everyday situations more and more. Daisy days are precious, the building stones of any relationship. When we lean back and reflect on the daisy days we have a yellow rose day.
So any daisy day can turn into a yellow rose day by thankfulness, gratefulness, by affirming those around us, by praising God from within, by stopping to look and be thankful. Is today a daisy day or a rose day?
Galatians 6:7-8 Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.
9-10 So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith
