Alfreda Oko Martin - Consider the Lilies: Japanese Flower Arrangement and Bible Topics

A New Beginning

May this year bring all the special things your heart is hoping for, and may His blessings and love be yours for evermore.

January closes the pages on last year, with its heartaches, trials and sorrows, as well as its pleasures and joys. The Christian can say "Hitherto hath the Lord led me," and rejoice, for "all things work together for good to them that love God." (Romans 8:28)

In Japan, New Year's Day is the big day of the year. All debts should have been paid (although the installment plan is changing this), and everyone automatically becomes one year older. At every street corner are special decorations of three large bamboo poles, wrapped around with pine branches and straw rope. The Japanese have a saying which means "Oh! It's good and it's bad. It's good to see the holiday season again, but it also means I'm one year nearer hell!"

The greatest event in your life this coming year (if you have not been "born again") would be your becoming a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ, for "whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved!"

It takes a new You to make a New Year

JANUARY

Place two needle-point holders in the vase: one in the back section, the other in the left-front corner.

Place branch 1 in center-back of the first holder; branch 2 goes left-front of branch 1, and is pulled to 45 (see p. 97). Put branch 3 in the front holder, and pull to right-front down over the vase.

Helpers A and B are placed behind branch 3, bringing the two sections together.

Place carnations as shown.

Materials used:

Juniper pine
Red carnations

A New Beginning

Seeing an unused Bible in his home, a small boy asked his mother whose book it was. "It is God's book," she said. "Well," replied the boy, "don't you think we should return it? Nobody seems to read it."

This year may we have fewer dusty Bibles.

"Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you."

I Peter 5:7

This year rememberit matters to Him about you.

Be not troubled with thought of the morrow,
Of duties you surely must do,

On the Lord cast thy burden of sorrow,
It matters to Him about you!

Be not weary when trials are given,
But trust Him to carry you through,

He will make all a pathway to Heaven,
It matters to Him about you!

Be patient until his appearing,
'Tis dawn almost now, on your view.

The mists of this dark age are clearing,
He is planning in love about you!

And thus the year I now begin
A happy one will be,

If I am seeking just to do
The thing that pleaseth Thee!

JANUARY

Place branch 1 in holder and pull to 45. Branch 2, a peeled-root, should hang over the rim of the vase.

A cluster of lilies, 3, is placed to go through the root openings, facing in different directions. Add helper A at 75.

Materials used:

Magnolia
Peeled root
Lilies

A New Beginning

The present moment flies,
And bears our life away;

Oh, make Thy servants truly wise,
That they may live today!

The New Year lies before you
Like a spotless tract of snow.

Be careful how you tread it,
For every mark will show.

He who provides for his life, but takes no care for eternity, is wise for a moment, but a fool forever.

JANUARY

Even though this is considered a tall-vase arrangement, the mouth of the vase is large enough to hold a needlepoint holder.

In center-back of the holder place a black hanging vine, 1, with the tip hanging slightly to the left.

Place white-rolled stems 2 to come up from the center.

Place short black stem 3 to the right-front.

Fill in the background with scarlet flax, and add helpers as shown.

Materials used:

Black hanging vine
White rolled stems
Scarlet flax

Prayer

I never prayed sincerely for anything, but it came, at some time, somehow, in some shape.

Adoniram Judson

Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our argument, despise our personsbut they are helpless against our prayers.

Sidlow Baxter

The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayer-less work. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.

Samuel Chadwick

God sets more value on prayer and communion than labor. The Heavenly Bridegroom is wooing a wife, not hiring a servant... Prayer brings God out of His secret place to work wonders in the earth, to pour Himself through the believer into a world of lost souls.

A. W. Roffe

"Too busy to pray!" You might as well say "Too busy to live."

Prayer is not lost time. It is living itself. It is that without which no time is saved, but all time is saved, but no time is lost. It conserves time, making it valuable and effective.

I have so much to do (today) that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.

Martin Luther

FEBRUARY

An unusual Valentine arrangement.

Strip the ferns of all inside leaves, place them together at the bottom, and push them into the center of the needlepoint holder. Put in a tall cat-tail branch, 1, at a slightly diagonal angle. Bend the tips of the ferns to form a heart-shape, and wire them in that position on to the cat-tail branch. This makes 2.