Courage and Hope

Courage and Hope.

I had to share this.

I have to admit to you that I almost threw these plants away.

I bought a Hibiscus tree about 7 years ago and gave it to my parents -it has grown into a huge tree that we drag into our great room every winter (we have it in a big pot) and back onto the porch each Spring. It has bright and beautiful flowers year-round, and my parents only lament is that it is too big for them to handle.

And because I had such great luck with that tree, I bought myself one for my apartment (it hasn't flourished like my parents, but its alive!) Well, towards the end of the season last year I found two more flowering plants on sale called 'Hibiscus' although they hadn't really flowered yet. I laughed once I got them to my balcony and they bloomed, because they looked exactly like Rose of Sharron (my parents yard is full of it) and nothing like the Hibiscus tag attached to them.

But I kept them.

By the fall they were dead and I was tempted to throw them away. But I decided it wouldn't hurt to put them in the back of my spare, dark walk-in closet to go dormant (you are supposed to not water them and keep them in a totally dark room) and I figured if by the Spring they were truly dead I would just lug them to the dumpster.

Well, towards the end of January I noticed that one of them began to bloom these waxy yellow flower/leaves. It seemed almost miraculous (mind you, I haven't given them one drop of water since October and the closet is pitch black). I was telling my parents about how crazy that was the other day and when I went to take a picture tonight to send my Dad, I saw that the entire bush had bloomed these waxy yellow flower/leaves and there's a BRIGHT PINK one coming from the middle.

Are dormant plants supposed to actually bloom?

You'll have to find yourself a real botanist to answer that one... but here, in the first full week of Lent I saw my Jesus' bright smile on me through all of this.

"Yes, my daughter... sometimes even when you are totally neglected, disregarded, ignored, rejected, and thrown away by the world... I still make you BLOOM."

This is my lesson tonight to share with you. No soul or situation is without hope... regardless of what we see or hear around us, not looking at what the world says about it all... sometimes Jesus just asks us to dig really deep into our heart to find the COURAGE to BLOOM ANYWAY.