Once a year in early to mid-April, this plant buds a few delicate pink flowers. The plant comes alive with these beautiful petals that last only seven days. When Easter is in early or mid-April, it amazingly buds on Palm Sunday, and the flowers are blown off the stems on Resurrection Sunday. Please don’t ask me how this can be, but by some divine intervention, it happens this way.
You can imagine my surprise when I saw this lone pedal on the plant yesterday morning. How is this possible? It’s not spring! This is definitely the wrong season! We’re in November for goodness sake! It must be confused. The weather was even 40° outside. All I could say was that this was a head-scratcher. But again, nothing is coincidental with God.
I won’t bore you with my life challenges these days; it’s been quite a season of disappointments, doubts, and sorrow. I know many people are struggling; it’s not easy out there in the world.
In my desperate search for affirmation and confirmation that there will be light at the end of my “anguished tunnel,” I testify by the sheer hope and trust in Christ Jesus who reminded me… Sometimes, the most beautiful things can be birthed out of challenging circumstances.
In Isaiah 61:3 of the Bible, it says this…
“…To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”
From the ashes of a dormant plant came beauty. That petal was the miracle, sign, and wonder I needed to know that in my sorrow and pain, a new thing was coming. So today, I’m putting on the garment of praise and removing the spirit of heaviness from my heart.
