Who doesn’t love the charming little blue flowers of the wildflower myosotis? The airy flowers seem to float above the foliage as they bob and dance with every breeze.
The common name, “Forget-Me-Not,” has a few interesting stories about its origin.
One such fanciful legend tells of a medieval knight walking with his lady love by a river, where the water-loving plant grows well. When the fair maiden remarked how pretty these blue flowers were, the knight gallantly scooped up a spray of these delightful wildflowers for her.
Caught off balance by the weight of his armor, he was not able to keep himself from tumbling into the raging torrent. He tossed the flowers to the young lady as he shouted his last words, “Forget me not!”
Forgetfulness is not a trait reserved for the elderly. They just finally have an excuse for this common foible of mankind!
Most of us are forgetful by nature. If I had a penny for every time I walked into a room and couldn’t remember what I went in it for….where was I going with this sentence?
Oh, yeah; back to the Forget-Me-Nots. Sad to say, I forgot them. Today I found the bottom half of a milk jug where the seeds sown this winter had grown to tiny, stunted plants.
The culprit was my forgetfulness. It’s not that I didn’t want these sweet, blue wildflowers in the garden again. Our youngest daughter had planted some of them when she was very little, and we treasured their appearance each spring. But back then, there wasn’t much shade in the garden, so they died out from the harsh sunlight.
So many other things were happening at once this spring, and the little seedlings didn’t get potted up before today. Hopefully, they still have time to grow big enough to be planted out in the shade garden. Plants as tiny as they are now would be lost in there — and possibly even forgotten!
Along with these neglected seedlings on my potting bench I found a few daffodil bulbs that had not been planted in the fall, shriveled but still trying to put out green growth. There were also a few root-bound plants that needed to be planted in larger pots or in the garden, and some forgotten sedums getting rather dry.
This only drives home the point that forgetfulness is second nature to many of us. God understood this when he told us to remind one another about what’s important.
Peter wasn’t afraid to remind his readers about the Christian virtues and about making sure of our own calling.
“Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things” (2 Peter 1:12a, NASB).
In this chapter, he lays out how a Christian is to act and how important it is to fortify our faith by studying the Scriptures, even as he himself is writing part of them.
“So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts. But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God” (2 Peter 19-21).
The scriptures serve as a reminder for us as forgetful people (2 Peter 1:15). All we need to do is remember to read and study it!