God’s Love Is Hidden in the Little Plants
By Xiaoxiang
Nature wakes in spring. The grasses, quietly, poke their heads up through the earth; the trees put forth tender leaves, swaying in the wind with much grace; various flowers unfold their splendors, vying for attention. What a breathtaking scenery it is! Perhaps, your heart is captivated by those flowers, or even more attracted by a beautiful view somewhere, unwilling to turn away from it. However, I wonder whether you have noticed some plants growing in the corners. Though unremarkable, they possess marvelous effects and help us heal the injuries or cure illnesses.
I remember when I was a kid, that one time I was playing with my two brothers under an apricot tree. When we were running and frolicking, we hit a hornet’s nest. The hornets got irritated and poured out to chase after us. My youngest brother ran slowly that he was stung and got several bumps on the head, hurting so bad that he kept screaming and crying. In desperation, I thought of a folk treatment method my grandpa taught us. So I pulled up the Portulaca oleracea on the roadside, shook off the earth from it and took some that were clean to mash them with a stone, and then I hurried to apply them to the bumps on my brother’s head. With its particular effect of eliminating toxicity, the swellings on his head were soon reduced. My brother stopped crying. After we played for a while again, he washed off the Portulaca oleracea and we found the bumps on his head became only tiny red spots.
There are still many little plants with miraculous effects like that, such as Popoding, which is also called dandelion. It has the effects of clearing heat-toxin, relieving pain and removing stasis. If we suffer from excessive internal heat and have furuncles or pustules on our bodies, as long as we apply some dandelion to the skin, and also eat some at the same time, the effects will be produced just in a few days. There is also another plant, Edangshi, that is Ebushi, or it is called Herba Centipeda. Growing along roads and in fields, they look inconspicuous and are available everywhere. But they have many effects of treatment, such as healing migraine, rhinitis, nasal polyps, pertussis and so on. There are many little plants like this, and they have their own different medical value for curing many varieties of illnesses. In addition, a great deal of little plants unknown to us are still serving us silently.
When we take for granted all the abundance heaven bestows upon us, yet none of us has sought out where these little flowers and plants come from and that why they have such miraculous effects.
After I believed in God, I read God’s words, which say, “God created among all things some plants, animals, and various herbs that are specifically meant to heal injuries or treat illness in the human body. What should someone do, for instance, if they are burned, or accidentally scald themselves? Can you just rinse the burn with water? Can you just wrap it up with any old piece of cloth? If you do that, the wound might fill with pus or become infected. If someone gets a fever, for instance, or catches a cold; suffers an injury while working; develops a stomach ailment from eating the wrong thing; or develops certain diseases caused by lifestyle factors or emotional issues, including vascular diseases, psychological conditions, or diseases of the internal organs, then there are corresponding plants that cure their conditions. There are plants that improve blood circulation and remove stagnation, relieve pain, stanch bleeding, provide anesthesia, help heal the skin and return it to a normal condition, and disperse stagnant blood and eliminate toxins from the body—in short, these plants have uses in daily life. People can use them, and they have been prepared by God for the human body in case of need. God allowed man to discover some of them by happenstance, while others were discovered by people whom God chose to do so, or as a result of special phenomena He orchestrated. Following the discovery of these plants, mankind would pass them down, and many people would come to know about them. God’s creation of these plants thus has value and meaning. In summary, these things are all from God, prepared and planted by Him when He created mankind’s living environment. They are essential. Are God’s thought processes more thorough than those of mankind? When you see all that God has done, do you have a sense of God’s practical side? God works in secret. God created all of this when man had not yet come into this world, when He had had no contact with mankind. Everything was done with mankind in mind, for the sake of man’s existence and with thought for their survival, so that mankind may live happily in this rich and plentiful material world that God prepared for them, free from worry about food or clothes, lacking nothing. In such an environment, mankind can continue to reproduce and survive.”
Only through God’s words did I realize that these various herbs of service to us humans are all created by God, and that such miraculous effects of them are given by God, rather than created by nature. Pharmacies sell all kinds of medicines, some of which are capsules, and some are pills, but parts of the ingredients within them are exactly extracted from various herbs, such as, Danshen, balloonflower, loquat leaf, angelica, Hogfennel root, pokeberry root, Radix Puerariae, Tufuling, figwort root, and so on. They differ from each other in effects: Some can be used to subdue inflammation; some help relieve a cough; some are very effective in curing the injuries, in relieving muscles and activating collaterals; and some can heal internal bruises and trauma, and so on. Any of such effects, however, is inseparable from all kinds of plants God has created.
In the beginning, when God created the heavens and earth and all things, He prepared everything for us mankind. In order that we can continue to exist peacefully, healthily and happily, God makes meticulous plans in all aspects. Not only has He provided us with daily sustenance, but He has prepared various plants that are necessary for curing our illnesses. God has paid a high price for us. Thinking back on the little medicinal plants that I know or I have used, I really see that within these small flowers and grass is hidden God’s care and cherishing of mankind, and that they also bear witness to God’s wonderful deeds of His creation of all things. Only when we come before the Creator and read His words, can we discover more of God’s marvelous deeds and experience His true love of mankind.