Stop and smell the roses?

I feel as though I've been running through a path in this crazy thing known as daily life and have now reached the area where I am ready to begin summer but there is a problem... The path drops off like the sharp edge of a cliff. I missed it. How does this happen?
When I think about it, this is something I've struggled with most of my life. Learning to enjoy the season... the month... the day... the week... the moment.
Unfortunately, the tireless saying of stop and smell the roses has become very cliche. Something that is said without thought of what it means. An old saying for "out of date" people. But should it be that way? Is that our problem?

When you think about it, to smell roses, you really must stop. Unlike other floral scents that can fill a room with just a handful, or like the scent on a soft breeze from a nearby magnolia tree, roses make you pause to take them in.

There are other times, however, such as walking into a grocery store on the eve of Valentine's Day and there is an obvious difference in the air. The 100 dozen roses captures not only your sense of smell, but also fills your eyes with their beauty. Times like those command you to notice, even if for only a split second... no stopping required.

Stopping to smell the roses takes more than time, it takes your mind and heart. It commands your attention. As I said before, there are so many other flowers that have a much more bountiful fragrance. I love the smell of eucalyptus, but have you ever seen it? It's just a thin branch with small leaves jutting out on each side. It's OK in itself, but more often than not, it is used as foilage for other flowers. It took me a long time to figure out what that scent came from. I never, ever, expected it to be a tree. I had heard of eucalyptus, but surely those trees must produce flowers (and some do, but it wasn't the flower that I was smelling). No, it's not scent alone that draws our attention to stop and smell the roses. It's the beauty of the rose as we pass by that must first entice us to stop and try to capture it.

Looking through my life (even just yesterday), God has placed many roses throughout my days. Most of the time I run by barely noticing they exist. I can see the beautiful colors blurred here and there as I pass. I may even think, how sweet or fun something is for a split second as I race on.
My prayer is that I will learn to stop when I see the color draw near. Stop - not pause, not think, not do my obligatory 20 second halt. The goal is to take in the beauty not just quickly catch the fragrance and continue on. It's that each moment spent with these roses makes a difference in my life. That I will walk away changed in some small way.

Old habits die hard and this will take more than my will to make it happen. I am quite confident that God put those roses in my life for a reason. I pray I am able to not only capture them, but to seek them...

Take care...