I've learned a lot from this little plant. This year I decided to add a little color to my back patio. Last year I didn't plant flowers because Macie was still a baby for the most part and put EVERYTHING in her mouth. This year I decided that we'd be safe with a hanging basket. This basket was beautiful. I was drawn too it as soon as I saw it. It had white, dark pink, light pink, and purple flowers. It was full and cascaded nicely down the sides. It was stunning actually.
Then I bought it. Now let me just start by saying that I make zero claim to be a green thumb. In fact, when it comes to plants, I don't think I have a thumb. For the last few years I've managed to keep geraniums kind of alive in pots on my front porch. I think it's impossible to kill geraniums though. Anyway, for a little while I stayed on top of this plant. I watered it. I loved it. I admired it. Then life happened. And I got to it when I got to it. By last week I decided it was probably done and needed to head to the dumpster. But, I decided to see if I could try and resurrect it. I felt like I was destroying it. I started pulling on the stems and pulling off all the dead brown parts. The dry ugly stems and dried up buds came off pretty easily. After about 5 minutes of this "pruning" of sorts, I had one pretty pitiful looking plant and a huge pile of dead stick looking stems. It was a scraggly mess of half brown half green sticky looking stems hanging out of a black planter. But, I knew that rain was in the forecast so I decided to sit tight and see what happened. This morning I got up and this is what the plant looked like. There were about 40 more flowers on it then there was when I went to bed last night. I went out and looked at it and you can see on those brown looking stems that the life is starting to course through them again. There are green leaves pushing out the brown ones. It's not hanging as limp and lifeless as it was just a few days ago. And as I was standing there inspecting it, this crazy feeling of gratitude and thankfulness raised up inside of me because I realized that this is God's business. He breathes life into those of us that are ready to get tossed out. Sometimes it's ugly. He pulls off all the old dead parts that are choking out the barely existing life. Then he pours his new life into us. And then slowly but surely we bloom again. Are we suddenly the best flower arrangement on the block? No, absolutely not. People walking by still probably wouldn't think that this is a pretty hanging basket. It's still rather scraggly and brown. But the fact is, there is life. There's new life. There is growth where there was none. Is that you today? Man, it sure is me. I feel like God is pulling out all those dead, dried up pieces of me. Sometimes it feels like there will be nothing left of me when he's done. But slowly he has been pouring new life into me. If you're in the same situation, stand steadfast in the fact that God will not leave you dead and dried up. Once the painful pruning is done, there will be life! Happy Tuesday!
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HEY, I'M JESSICA!
Christian. Wife. Mommy. Daughter. Pastor. Friend. Saved.Redeemed. Beloved.
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