The Little Things

Today I finally got around to planting the leftover vinca from a very large flat my husband bought last weekend. I hate leaving beautiful sprouts without a home, but I was out of space.

Unless you count the sparse and bare container that is nurturing my "survivors". Every year at the end of May I look at my garden closely for any determined fellows that held on over the cold winter and chose to give it another go when the warm weather returned. This year I found two teensy-weensy petunias, one lone portulaca, and a "yet-to-be-determined." I transplanted these hangers-on into a large clay pot and displayed it in a place of honor at the edge of the driveway.

Now each morning I walk outside and check the progress of my feeble friends. Will they be bigger? Will they bloom? Watching the progression of a wilted seedling to a colored blossom is intensely satisfying.

I wonder if God looks at us like that. It is lovely to enjoy a flower that was given the best of everything. Good soil, fertilizer, and the right amount of sun. They grow big and colorful and flashy. But the ones who clung on even when nothing went their way... that is a different kind of beauty. Beauty with strength.

I have noticed that my life is not always one, and not always the other. Sometimes it is easy. Sometimes it is cold, dry, and lonely. Some days love spills out of me like an overflowing teapot. Some days a drop would double my stores. I hope I have what it takes to praise Him through whatever weather I find myself enduring.

God please help me hang on in all seasons and bloom just the same.

(And by the way, my vinca is enjoying a little stint in a PLASTIC container. I couldn't let those big healthy plants steal all the glory!)