Look For the Tulips

I love tulips. They are my favorite flower but it’s because of what they represent to me. They remind me that there is always something to be grateful for. They remind me that spring will come and that any situation can be improved with a little splash of color. They remind me that it’s okay to bloom where you are planted and that beauty doesn’t belong to just the roses. But most of all they remind me that I am loved and show up in the most amazing ways when I need them most as gentle reminders of Heavenly Father’s awareness of me and my life course.  Let me explain.

On November 1, 2005 my 1lb 3 oz baby who was not due until February 14th was delivered 16 weeks early to save my life.  As with any new addition to a family our world was immediately pushed off kilter but everything about this situation felt foreign and scary and unfair to us all. Hundreds of what if’s and unanswered questions seemed to race through my mind like a 24 hour news ticker offering no answers and my dreams seemed to have vanished in an instant. Our daughter clung to life with only 40% odds that she would survive the first week. At a particularly heart wrenching moment after watching my tiny lifeless baby be resuscitated I was quietly sobbing in my hospital bed when there was a knock at the door and a nurse brought in an enormous floral arrangement full of tulips- in the middle of November. The sight of those tulips brought the memory of the words of Welcome to Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley searing to the forefront of my mind.  I don't remember much about my response to the first time I heard it but I must have filed it away under "Things to Remember When Crisis Strikes" because 8 years later I was remembering it in a stunning and breathtaking way that would impact my life forever.    As I stared at the flowers in the bedside table I recalled the essay speaking of a traveler who after months of preparation for a vacation to an exotic destination disembarked from a plane only to find himself in Holland instead.  He looked around and was deeply hurt and disappointed not to have the expected  scenery, food, people and culture awaiting him. Anger and resentment built at this folly as he realized his ticket was nonrefundable and his destination could not be corrected. It wasn’t fair. All his friends got to the right destinations. What was he to do? And then in the midst of his despair he looked up and saw tulips. Millions of glorious tulips. For Holland has tulips like no other place.

    As I studied each exquisite petal and blossom of my own tulips with tears running down my cheeks I was reminded that yes I was on a different path, that yes we most definitely were not at the destination we had imagined, prayed for, and prepared for but that if I remembered to stop and look for the tulips I would appreciate a journey and life experience that not only could be beautiful but would have a richness and extraordinary events that could not happen at any other destination. 

     For 13 years now I have been looking for tulips and I have found this truth to be universal. I haven’t yet met anyone who has not had life paths diverted in some way.  Disappointment, failure, hurt and sometimes just happenstance affect us all and far too often we allow that to pursuade us that happiness is no longer in our reach. This is simply false as we were created to find true happiness. It’s what we are designed to do. And when we shift our perspective from focusing on what we don’t have and look around for the tulips that are always blooming in unexpected ways we will always walk away with our heads a little higher, our hearts a little fuller and an appreciation of the beauty of our own personal destinations. Never stop looking for tulips!