Article October 30, 1948 Issue

CONSIDER THE LILY

CAROL RICHMOND

For years an earnest seeker of Truth had striven to overcome the temptation to be impatient when it was necessary to wait upon another's slow movements. Quick of thought and action herself, she found it most difficult to maintain a sense of serenity and banish irritable, impatient impulses when others, to her sense of things, were dilatory or procrastinating.

A little incident, the significance of which she herself was slow in grasping, ultimately brought the healing which she sought. An Easter lily plant was the object of her daily care, and she watched it grow with delight. When the first bud seemed large enough to open, and day after day passed without the slightest change as far as she could see, questions began to arise in her thought as to what might have been wrong in her treatment of the plant. Then one day, even as she watched it, one petal began to curl back. And with leisurely grace the bud unfolded into a blossom of such pure white loveliness that she stood in quiet wonder before its exquisite beauty. Never before had she seen so large a flower of its kind. She noted then how other buds had been developing while she centered her attention on the first one.

At this point the verse (Matt. 6:28), "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow," came to her thought. As she pondered it, the marvel of the blossoming impressed her, although its full significance still seemed to elude her. Daily she continued to watch the plant, and she recalled Mary Baker Eddy's words (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 206), "Growth is governed by intelligence; by the active, all-wise, law-creating, law-disciplining, law-abiding Principle, God." Then a friend who had been speaking of day in its scientific meaning, as indicative of the unfoldment of good, remarked, "Have you not noticed how much slower some people are than others in their process of development?"

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