"Love one another as I have loved you." ~ John 13:34
Once upon a time there was a little dandelion growing in a garden of flowers. The dandelion loved its home among the many varieties of blooms. It hoped to grow tall and strong with large, colorful petals that smiled upward toward the sun.
Sometimes a gardener would appear. One day while the gardener was working, he came across the little dandelion and asked, “What is this pesky dandelion doing in my flower garden? Weeds aren’t pretty and they just cause problems. I hate weeds!”
The gardener leaned down and angrily plucked the little dandelion, throwing it aside along with other plucked weeds. The little dandelion was confused and hurt. It asked some of the other weeds, “Why doesn’t the gardener love us like the flowers? What have we done?”
A wise old thistle replied, “We are feared because we are different than the flowers.” This made the dandelion very sad as it missed its flower friends very much. It decided to spend its time trying to figure out how to make the gardener love them.
By the wave of nature’s magic wand, the dandelion’s root system began to regenerate and push itself upward toward the sky. In no time, the little dandelion was swaying in the sunshine among all its flower friends once again.
When fall came, it began to drop its yellow petals to reveal spherical seeds. Each time the wind blew, the tiny little seeds of the dandelion would blow across the wind like snow on a winter’s day. When spring came, the dandelion saw other dandelion’s pop up nearby the flowers making their own little bed. “How wonderful!” thought the little dandelion. “More weeds like me!”
It wasn’t long before the bees noticed the dandelions dancing in the wind. There were many little patches of them due to the scattered seeds from fall. The bees feasted on the sweet nectar and pollen of the dandelions and began to pollenate the blooms of the flowers. The garden became a cornucopia of colors and fragrances as the days drifted by.
The gardener appeared one day and stood in amazement at the beauty of his garden. He saw the bees flitting around the dandelions and landing on the flower blooms. Suddenly, the gardener felt sad that he had judged the little dandelion so harshly. Without the dandelion, there would not be as many bees, and without the bees pollenating the flower blooms, there would be no flowers. How sad would our world be without the beauty of gardens?
From that day forward, the gardener learned about all the different weeds and their benefits. He was surprised to find out how many were useful. The more he learned about them, the less fearful he was of them overtaking his garden. He realized that it all worked together as a unit. He also saw in their difference; they were beautiful too.
The little dandelion enjoyed living out its days among all the friends in the garden, but mostly it was grateful to be loved.
