Common Tormentil

Common Tormentil is a British flower found everywhere in our country save the Wash, that area between Norfolk and Lincolnshire. There’s nothing especially interesting about it. Medicinal books and sites claim it assists with diarrhoea among other things, but this is not a condition upon which I would wish to dwell, nor is its appearance particularly remarkable. So what can I say of this simple flower? I might better comment on where I saw it. It’s not the clearest of photos, but I snapped it growing on Helvellynn, the lofty Cumbrian peak. Mountains are themselves attractive and offer stunning views of the scenery below. On them, however, little grows. There’s the inevitable rough grasses, but of beautiful flowers, very few. The winds are too strong, the soils too poor, the temperatures too low. So this flower was significant, not because of its impressive size nor national rarity, but because it was growing there at all.

You may be the only Christian in your family, your home, your school, college or workplace. I suspect some people might be the only Christian in their church. Some believers feel lonely, bereft of godly society. Yet the Lord finds such ones especially precious, methinks. You may not have particular skills or callings, you’re just an ordinary saint in a solitary place. But like the godly man of Psalm 1, great things are in store. As I rejoiced to see a simple flower growing on the mountain slope, so the Lord delights in His people, especially when they be found in poor places.