{"id":138,"date":"2012-08-26T20:13:01","date_gmt":"2012-08-27T01:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/musings.splanescorner.us\/?p=138"},"modified":"2016-12-06T19:38:44","modified_gmt":"2016-12-07T01:38:44","slug":"unlovely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/unlovely\/","title":{"rendered":"Unlovely"},"content":{"rendered":"

My husband, Ken, planted a large sunflower garden in our backyard. There are several different varieties, Russian Mammoth, Autumn Beauty, and several others. I love them. They are all different and unique, but all beautiful.<\/p>\n

But there is more to them than just the beauty of the flowers. When the flowers begin to fade, they look kind of ugly. The leaves turn brown, and I just want to cut them down. But Ken won’t let me. He said the seeds provide food for the birds, and we should leave them. My perfectionism and need to have everything “in order” makes me want to clean them out.<\/p>\n

But Ken looks at things differently. He is willing to look past the unloveliness of the plant to provide life sustaining sustenance to the birds. He has the ability to focus on what is really important.<\/p>\n

It can be that way in life, too. In our society that values perfection, looking youthful at all costs, we lose sight of true beauty. it is said that we all have a ‘face’ that we portray to others. We want everyone to like us. We don’t want anyone to see our flaws. And some of us want to make everything look perfect around us. But life isn’t like that. People aren’t perfect, and we don’t always do everything perfectly, and things don’t always turn out the way we want them to. We can’t control everything.<\/p>\n

My friend, Asher, says we all have a sense of rejection in our spirit that flows down from Adam and Eve being put out of the garden. And that drives our need for perfection, some of us more than others. We need to understand that God loves us just as we are. Sometimes He uses our imperfections to bring life to another person. Sometimes when we think we have it all wrong, we actually have it right, and when we look back, we can see the hand of the Master weaving our lives into a beautiful tapestry.<\/p>\n

Photo by The Library of Congress<\/a> <\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My husband, Ken, planted a large sunflower garden in our backyard. There are several different varieties, Russian Mammoth, Autumn Beauty, and several others. I love them. They are all different and unique, but all beautiful. But there is more to them than just the beauty of the flowers. When the flowers begin to fade, they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-musings"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/2179175842_6fda90ecc2_sunflowers.jpg?fit=500%2C354&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s8a3GA-unlovely","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":53,"url":"https:\/\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/a-valentine-gift\/","url_meta":{"origin":138,"position":0},"title":"A Valentine Gift","author":"Lea Splane","date":"February 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I work for a very large company in the Midwest. Every Valentine's Day there are several tables at the Security entrance to the buildings to hold all the flowers that are delivered to employees for Valentine's Day. They even have them labeled by alphabet. 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Six years ago Ken talked me into adopting a cat and now we have four, so I have proven the point; hence, the cup. But this isn't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Musings"","block_context":{"text":"Musings","link":"https:\/\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/category\/musings\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/2570946012_9c59301283_Crazy-Cat-Lady.jpg?fit=313%2C500&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":49,"url":"https:\/\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/cat-hair\/","url_meta":{"origin":138,"position":2},"title":"Cat Hair","author":"Lea Splane","date":"June 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Have you ever visited someone and left with your clothes covered in pet hair? I have and I was convinced I did not want any pets in my house. I am also very allergic to dogs and some cats. So when Ken and I married, he wanted a cat, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Musings"","block_context":{"text":"Musings","link":"https:\/\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/category\/musings\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/e835b70621fd013ecd0b470de7444e90fe76e6d318b2154094f8c6_640_Cat-Hair.jpg?fit=640%2C454&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/e835b70621fd013ecd0b470de7444e90fe76e6d318b2154094f8c6_640_Cat-Hair.jpg?fit=640%2C454&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/e835b70621fd013ecd0b470de7444e90fe76e6d318b2154094f8c6_640_Cat-Hair.jpg?fit=640%2C454&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":130,"url":"https:\/\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/its-all-in-the-choices-we-make\/","url_meta":{"origin":138,"position":3},"title":"It’s All in the Choices We Make…","author":"Lea Splane","date":"July 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I remember an experience I had sometime during 1990, I was sitting on the podium of our congregation in Maryland, taping Asher's message (that was old school when you had to sit and watch the cassette tape and turn it over when the first side was full). All of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Musings"","block_context":{"text":"Musings","link":"https:\/\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/category\/musings\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/e032b20621f61c3e81584d04ee44408be273e4d41bb114469cf8_640_choices.jpg?fit=640%2C426&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/e032b20621f61c3e81584d04ee44408be273e4d41bb114469cf8_640_choices.jpg?fit=640%2C426&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/e032b20621f61c3e81584d04ee44408be273e4d41bb114469cf8_640_choices.jpg?fit=640%2C426&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":123,"url":"https:\/\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/of-chicken-nuggets-and-pigs-in-a-blanket\/","url_meta":{"origin":138,"position":4},"title":"Of Chicken Nuggets and Pigs in a Blanket","author":"Lea Splane","date":"July 10, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"This week Ken and I have been helping with our church's annual Vacation Bible School in the evenings after work. We help in the kitchen serving the food that we give the children each night at the beginning of the evening. It is \"kid food,\" like pigs in a blanket\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Musings"","block_context":{"text":"Musings","link":"https:\/\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/category\/musings\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/2932330337_a6dc76b5cd_chicken-nuggets.jpg?fit=500%2C334&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":147,"url":"https:\/\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/choking-on-the-covenant\/","url_meta":{"origin":138,"position":5},"title":"Choking on the Covenant","author":"Lea Splane","date":"January 14, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"When Ken and I got married, part of our wedding ceremony was communion. I recited the Hebrew blessing over the bread and grape juice. Well, when I get nervous my mouth gets dry, and I was very nervous that night. And I didn't think about drinking some water before the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Musings"","block_context":{"text":"Musings","link":"https:\/\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/category\/musings\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/8657028224_3f8dc6123f_Covenant.jpg?fit=500%2C331&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/splanescorner.us\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}