Little Gems

There’s a variety of lettuce sold here in Scotland called Little Gem – which seems an overblown claim for what is, after all, just a rather limp-leafed lettuce.

I’m sitting at the table looking at the vase of carnations Don brought me the other day. I’ve always loved carnations. We had red ones at our wedding. I suppose, though, over the years other flowers have edged carnations off the top spot in my estimation. Lilies are hard to beat. A fragrant rose from the garden – nothing compares. Tulips can be fabulous.

The carnations in front of me might be called floribunda – I don’t really know. But they aren’t the single giant floral head but instead, a composition of lines of delicate, thin leaves bordering short, delicate stems with one or two small carnation heads opening at the end. There are yellows, peaches, reds. A composition of colour; not a solo.

You might say these little gems are ordinary. They’re not spectacular. They don’t trumpet their beauty with a heady fragrance, nor spread their petals wide like one of my voluptuous roses. 

But in their own quiet, modest way, they are eloquent. They speak of love. They express beauty. They bring colour into a drab season. 

I suppose we all want to be like the 118-carat egg shaped diamond recently auctioned in Hong Kong for about $30 million. Someone to be admired, oohed and aahed over. 

But the reality is that such a sparkler needs to be locked up, insured heavily, and isn’t out there to be enjoyed. Much better to be a little gem, sparkling away, bringing colour and love and beauty into many drab seasons and situations. A little gem, not hogging the limelight but content to flower in a composition of colour and line, its very humility enhancing its beauty all the more.

God’s word challenges, “Who dares despise the day of small things?” (Zechariah 4:10) Small things have a lot to be commended for. 

Little gems are precious.