There is a florist shop downtown that has a sign outside with a different person’s name on it each day. I always wondered what it was for, and I discovered that they play a little game: the flower shop chooses a different, random name every day, and if you’re the lucky person with the name they picked that day, you get a free rose.
The first thing I thought was, “Wow! That’s so cute and creative, I hope they pick me!”
Everyday since that day back in March, I’ve been waiting for them to pick the name Amanda. It’s a pretty common name anyway, so I figured within the last two and a half months, they would have chosen it by now.
Nope.
Ten weeks. Seventy days. And they still have not picked me.
They chose Anna. They chose Carolyn. They chose Shane, Bridget, Arthur, Sabrina, Walter and even Esther, too. They did not choose me. Not for seventy days, or the weeks long before then. I know I should not be the one complaining, because some of the names that were chosen you can’t even find on keychains. You can find the name Amanda on just about any mug and magnet in gift shops all around – but Ezekiel? I’m not so sure about that.
Every day I wake up and check to see which name has been posted on their Twitter page. Every time I walk by the shop and see the little black chalkboard sign, beautifully decorated with twisting vines and brightly colored flowers surrounding the name of the day, I wait to find my own. I’ve become so obsessed with this flower shop choosing me, that I’ve come to the discouraging conclusion that they will never pick me.
But, why not? Why wouldn’t they choose me? I mean, come on, there has to be at least a hundred other people named Amanda in this city that want a free rose! Who doesn’t love flowers? Who doesn’t want to be chosen? All human beings want to be chosen. We want to be the lucky winners of prizes, sweepstakes, awards, scholarships, love, and if you’re me – flowers. We all want to feel dazzling and important in this great big world. We just want someone to scream our names from the tops of mountains and declare their love. We all want to feel useful, wanted, desired. The list goes on.
I want someone to pick me like their favorite flower in their garden they’ve spent so much time and energy working on to make flourish. I don’t want to be a weed that is thrown off to the side. I want to be the biggest, reddest, most perfect rose in the bunch, because those are the ones that seem to get chosen first, right? No one wants the small ones beginning to brown at the edges, cast in a great, dark shade from an oak tree. No one picks small and insignificant and not good enough. Everyone picks over-the-top, gorgeous things that sparkle. I want to sparkle.
In that moment, I felt a lot like that. I was waiting for a sign – in fact, I was waiting for the sign outside that flower shop to pick me. I was waiting for the day that, finally, I am chosen. Sometimes we feel lost in the crowd. We question whether or not we are good enough, as we admire all of the other pretty flowers in the garden of life around us. We question what we are worth – people, this life, love. I know my flower isn’t the most colorful or the most full, but what I do know is that I don’t need my name written in cursive with pink chalk on a board for the world to see. I don’t need a free rose.
It was then when I decided to write this that I realized that I am already chosen. I am chosen every minute of the day by someone who loves me so much that He died for me. I am chosen by Jesus. Every single time. I sparkle as a guiding light in the eyes of Him. I’m not just a flicker on a tiny candle slowly dying out into a wispy, smoke trail. No, no, no. In His eyes, I ignite like a burning bush full of life and light. Like fireworks on the Fourth of July. Because I believe in His light.
He choses me everyday – sinner or saint. And I couldn’t ask for more than that, right? Where are you going to find someone like that who loves you at your worst and at your best, totally and completely. I could be like, “Hey God, I really messed up this time, bro, but I know you still love me. I know that even though this is one big, fat mess I got myself tangled up in and I hurt a few people, you still got my back, right?” And He would say yes. He would always say yes. Because He chooses everyone. And I know He chooses me. You don’t need to deserve God’s love, you only need to receive it.
So, if you’re feeling a lot like a blank chalkboard sign or the flower in the back corner of the garden that no one notices or wants, remember this: He picks you, too. Every time. Even when we feel at our worst as the most unlikely to be chosen in a crowded room, as we admire everyone else surrounding us, that’s when He picks us by our little green stems and puts us in His bouquet. He sees beyond our bright and shiny outsides into what lies on the inside – our hearts. At any price; even the price of His only son. And do you want to know why?
Because when you call out, “Pick me, please,” as you’re lying in bed at night, He whispers back, “I already have.”
