I stared dejectedly at the fading plant before me. A tear stole down my cheek, and I wiped it away with the back of my hand. One plant shouldn’t be so important, but this one was.
It was summer of 2001. Four years before I had buried my stillborn son unexpectedly, and in the daze of pain and sorrow I had found comfort in my friends’ and families’ support. Particularly consoling was a beautiful plant certain friends had collectively purchased and given to me at the funeral, and through the years I had cherished it as a memorial to my youngest son.
At the time I was given the plant it was blooming, but for some unknown reason the blossoms faded and in the following years had not bloomed once. Nevertheless, I treasured it, and so naturally I was especially distressed by its current condition.
I had recently bought some plant food, and made the faulty assumption that if a little bit does a little bit of good, then a whole lot ought to do a whole lot of good. I gave the plant the entire package of plant food without diluting it, and the miserable result was that the plant gradually showed signs of demise.
I was practically grief-stricken at the thought of losing it, but as the days passed I could tell that my prized plant was dead. I could no longer avoid this fact, as the leaves yellowed, and slowly the stalks turned to straw. At last I told my oldest son to carry the lifeless plant to the backyard, so that later I could reuse the flowerpot.
As summer turned to fall, the flowerpot, still filled with dirt and dried stalks, sat in the backyard. Many times our Golden Retriever, in his romps through our yard, knocked it over and thereby disposed of some of the dirt. My son then scooped the potting soil, along with other dirt and gravel, back into the flowerpot on top of the dried stalks. For fear that it would get broken, I eventually told my son to carry the pot to our storage shed, where it could wait safely in the dark recesses of the shed until I had time to empty the dirt and replace it with a new plant.
September came. The trees were blazing with color, and the morning air had autumn’s chill; my heart felt the chill as well on the eleventh of the month, with its events in
One afternoon as the sun began to wane in the westward sky, my son came running into the house with a grin that spread ear to ear.
“Mom, you have to come see something. You’ll never believe this!” He exclaimed, breathlessly.
“After the eleventh, I’ll believe anything,” I muttered, as I followed my son to the front door.
Sitting on the step, where my son had placed it after finding it in the old shed, was the discarded flowerpot, the one that had held my comfort plant-the memorial to my son. But instead of stems of straw poking through dirt and gravel, my wondering eyes saw dozens of tiny green shoots struggling up toward the light; some large, some small, but all very much alive!
In the unlighted, damp and smelly storage shed a miracle had taken place. Somehow a misplaced root had grown into the strong plant sitting before me, the slanting rays of the setting sun shining off its healthy leaves. How it happened, I’ll never know, but I do know this: the resurrection of that plant sparked the fire of hope and comfort once more. Just as it had been an encouragement that spoke of a better tomorrow on that gloomy day four years before, once again this same message said not to worry about the strife in this world. Certainly, the collapse of supposedly secure buildings can be alarming; the unexpected has always managed to strike fear in the most daring soul. But for the Christian, there is a safeguard; he need never worry or fear because serenity and peace can be found in Christ. He is our safe haven throughout life‘s greatest tempest.
I carried my cherished plant back inside the house with hope reborn, and tears of joy streaming down my cheeks. Peace had, once again, been restored to my troubled mind with the aid of an ordinary plant and an extraordinary God.
A few months slipped by, and it was spring again; my plant was approaching the anniversary of its near death experience. And so it was one day, as the temperature slowly rose outdoors, that I noticed an odd thing as I watered my miracle plant in the window. One of the stems looked somehow different...it was bulging...something white was showing underneath...it was a blossom! For the first time in years, the first time since I had originally received it, my plant was about to bloom!
As I stared in wonder, the beautiful white blossom, wrapped in a circle of green, seemed to whisper to my heart a story of restoration. It said that not only will God give us peace in the midst of life’s many storms, but He will restore what was lost and bring more good and blessing from our trouble than we had believed possible. And now I had a promise-a living, beautiful promise- to believe it was possible. Spring had dawned on the world, and new life, re-instilled peace and a promise of God’s love and care had come with it.
While recalling this story, I realized I had forgotten the variety of my still-treasured plant in the passing years, and so researched its identity. I discovered that it is commonly known as the Peace Lily. Quite an appropriate name, don’t you think?
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