THE FLOWER
I once lived on a hill in an area called the Callahan Divide which lies off the southern end of the Great Plains.  Where the plains end the land drops abruptly from 3000ft to 500ft above sea level and becomes broken and rugged.  It was early summer when I walked out on our patio with my first cup of coffee in hand.  The blazing sun had just cleared the trees and turned the sky to a pale blue.  Not a hint of a cloud marred the vast empty sky that stretched, well, as far as you could imagine.  The sun had already begun to give the day a washed out look typical of west Texas summers.  The ground is rocky and populated with cactus, scrub oaks and cedar.  Their dull faded green only adds to the dull effect.  As I got to the edge of the concrete patio I looked down to check for any venomous critters before sitting down.  That’s when I saw the flower.
I sat down beside it glancing around expecting to see others that had bloomed overnight.  There were none, just the one solitary flower sprouting from among the rocks.   I said, “Where in the world did you come from?  What are you doing in a place like this?”   I bent over and looked at it more closely.  It was exquisite.  The color, symmetry and detail were marvelous.  It was a thing of perfect beauty.  Again I looked around me and then up at the sky.  Turning back to the flower I slowly began to realize that in the entire universe no one knew of its existence.  Of the billions of people on earth I was the only person that would know it had existed.  I was the only person to enjoy its beauty.
My mind began to nibble around the enormity of this wondrous experience.   The singleness of the gift I had been given tore at my heart.   Think of it!  Not another living being in the entire universe will ever see this flower.  I stopped by and looked at it several more times during the day and each time it gave me a warm parental proprietorial feeling.  I loved it.
Later that evening as it was getting dark I made one last visit to the flower.  It was gone.  A grasshopper was still clinging to the stem.  The sense of sadness that at first gripped me soon left.  The flower was gone as would be the grasshopper in its time and as will I in mine.  However, to this day that beautiful flower and its wonderful gift still live on in my memory.  The joy it gave me answered  the question I had asked the flower “What are you doing in a place like this?”  As to the question, “Where in the world did you come from?”  Well…………God did say, "Let the earth bring forth..."