The other day I took a trip to Shawnee State Forest in southern Ohio in search of flowers for my One Thousand Flowers project. In a damp shady spot along Forest Road 5, I found the plant pictured above. I knew it was a mint of some sort, but otherwise it was unfamiliar to me.
When I returned home later that night, I got busy trying to identify the plant. It turned out to be Hedge Nettle (Stachys cordata). While I had been in the field, I had not really paid attention to the purple pattern on the flower, probably because my eyes aren't so good now-a-days. But as I looked at the photos something suddenly struck me, the purple pattern on the lower lip of the flower looked like an angel. The lower portion of the design looked like the angel's legs, with the wings reaching up to the top of the petal. Between the wings, at the throat of the flower, is a pinkish blush (actually a series of very short pink lines), that looks like the angel's head.
In all honesty, I am the type of guy who doesn't normally notice shapes or designs in random things. I am NOT the kid who laid on his back, staring at the sky, looking at the shapes of the clouds. My mind generally doesn't work that way. That is why I found it odd that I so quickly noticed this design. As I write this, the song "Entertaining Angels" by the Newsboys is running through my mind.
I am convinced that God leaves little clues, little fingerprints behind, to remind us of his glory and handiwork. Let me encourage you to take some time to go out into creation, and look for these fingerprints that God has left for us!
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