Bridal Shower Devotional

My daughter is planning a wedding. She will be getting married and moving away. We recently had her shower at a local lavender farm. It was beautiful. Not only was the farm lovely but the opportunity to gather with friends as we showered my daughter with love was even better. I was hoping to get this blog up and running the next week but that didn’t work out. Still, I want to share the devotional with you.

Lavender

Symbolism: Purity, silence, devotion, caution, serenity, grace, calmness

The word, lavender, is derived from Old French lavare, meaning to wash.  We are washed in the precious blood of Christ, and because of that we share His name and His character.

Purple and blue are royal and priestly colors. The tabernacle of God and the priests clothing featured these colors.  The robes of kings were often purple and, in the New Testament, Lydia of Thyatira was a business woman who sold luxury textiles dyed purple.  She became a founding member for the church at Philippi. Purple dye was made from boiled snails back then, but the lavender plant was grown in the Middle East and was highly valued by the Greeks and Romans.  A pound of lavender sold for about as much as an average person would earn in a month.  

The pink in lavender is feminine, but it is a mature femininity, beauty grown up into graceful devotion and serenity.  

When God made clothing for our first parents, we are told He used the skins of animals.  The word for the clothing fashioned by God is the same word used for priestly robes later in the Bible.  Already, at this early point in the story, God is declaring the beautiful, grace that His people would be a royal priesthood.  

Later God clothes the earthly, fallible priests in linen garments of blue and purple and white.  

Women of God are called to a meek and quiet spirit, but not one of weakness.  We are to be led by the spirit in all areas of life to be used of Him where He wills.  

Galatians 5:22, 23 lists the fruit of the spirit and that harvest sounds a lot like the attributes we humans have assigned to Lavender.  Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance. Some versions of the Bible use the word patience instead of long-suffering.  People want to have the trait of patience but what if we were to use the word long-suffering.  Would we pray Lord please make me long-suffering?  Yet if we are to be filled with a quiet, calm gracefulness we will need to be long-suffering.  

I live in a limited growing zone and the only lavender I have been able to really cultivate is the munstead variety.  It is beautiful and I really can’t tell the difference but I have to be careful when I buy seed.  This year I picked up a packet at a local store.  I didn’t read the packet closely and what I brought home is English lavender.  The seeds spouted well and they have been planted.  Some are in the vegetable garden and some in the flower bed up against the house.  I will mulch them over this winter and we will see what happens.  I want the healing, calming grace of lavender but I need a strong flower.  

We are called to the beauty of royal serving grace and it is a strong grace that is needed.  The world tells us to self-care but God tells us to others-care.  The world tells us to do what is best for us (to be individualistic), God tells us to do what is best for the kingdom of righteousness and then all these things will be added unto us. 

My daughter is about to change her status.  Her name and her secondary purposes will change.  Her primary purpose, to serve the Kingdom of the Most High God, will stay the same.  

When we are read up and prayed up and spirit led, we are strong. We are beautiful and feminine. We bring the grace and healing of Christ to the world around us.  Our price is far above rubies and pounds of lavender.  May we all continue to shed the fragrance of Christ and drop the anointing of His oil wherever we find ourselves.