Inside Out

INSIDE OUT

Purple and White Tulips

I had a lovely surprise yesterday. The doorbell rang and I heard a truck drive away. When I opened the door, I found a tall green box. Inside was a beautiful collection of purple and white tulips.

Fresh flowers are fun to arrange. Most of my bouquets have been natural flowers and greenery, but I once had a memorable arrangement of daisies and carnations that had been artificially colored.

After arranging yellow, lavender and fuchsia to my satisfaction, I tied a gold ribbon around the neck of the vase. It was too big for my table so I set it in the living room.

Most of the flowers looked good a week later, but the water was pink-toned. I took the vase to the kitchen, pulled out the flowers and poured the water into a smaller vase.

Discarding the flowers that had wilted, I shortened the stems on those still full of life. Now I had a smaller, but still colorful, arrangement. I set it on the kitchen table.

The next morning my husband asked, “Why is the water pink?”

Color from the Inside Out

“The purples were artificially colored,” I replied. “Dye was put into the water and the flowers absorbed it through their stems up into the petals. Now the color is seeping out.”

As I stared at the vase, I thought we’re no different from the flowers. What we take in, we give out.

For example, it’s hard to give out positive thoughts if our mind is filled with negative ones. And a spirit of cooperation will never seep out of a person who has not soaked up skills needed to be a team player.

Love becomes discolored in a heart full of jealousy, and generosity will never come flowing out of a heart saturated with selfishness.

Living inside out is as easy as this: A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of (Luke 6:45).

 When I was in the office world that concept was applied to computers as garbage in---garbage out.

What Seeps Out of Your Heart?

It’s been said, “You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

What’s inside of us will eventually seep out.