This piece started out as a simple sunflower with petals intact, that soon gave way to the petals being cast to the wind as in 1 Peter 1:24 "For, 'All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall." The word RAPTURE echoed in my thoughts, melding with Shakespeare's play, The Merchant of Venice character of Shylock.
Shylock reacted out of deep pain, nee vengeance, that he would outdo the evil that had been done to him and would sink to his abuser's level of inhumanity when he spoke, "I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew's eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrongs a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard, but I will better the instruction."
Shylock's desiring to return evil for evil and pain for pain offers no satisfaction or healing except further damage to his soul. His thoughts paralleled an ongoing trouble that reared its ugly head again in my life and tried to steal my peace. Somebody said something... as I contemplated it with Jesus, I noticed the sunflower's petals clinging tightly to the base of the flower as the offenses and the people tied to them. I gave them one by one back to God, reciting, "It no longer matters. It matters not. It no longer matters. It matters not..."
In surrendering the injustices and seeking only to be one with God, my petals were not just cast into the wind but raptured out of the problem per His grace given in Romans 12:19 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. 20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. (as shown as the coals burning an abyss into the flower's head) 21 Be not overcome of evil but overcome evil with good.
Interestingly, the term "rapture" is not found in the Bible. According to W.W. Skeat's "Etymology of the English Language, 1879", "rapture" was coined by William Shakespeare, taking from Latin's "to be transported by a lofty emotion or ecstasy from the word "raptus." Which does align with 1 Thessalonians 4:17, "Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."
Till the other side then, "Adieu!
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