Thursday, January 13, 2022 Survivor

It was an ugly plant. It hadn’t bloomed for a couple years and I kept forgetting to water it. Then I’d overwater it. The very presence of this plant in my house was a silent reproach to me and my black thumb.

But I couldn’t quite make myself just throw it in the compost heap. It seemed brutal to do something that intentional.

So I did the next best thing. We went out of town for three weeks in the fall and I left it outside on the back stoop. I also left a note for our neighbors saying something like “Don’t bother watering the potted plants outside – I’m letting them die off before winter.” There! That’ll take care of it, I thought. By the time we get back, it’ll be a fait accompli.

But it wasn’t. Our neighbor accidentally knocked it over and the whole thing fell out. He took pity on it, stuffed it all back in the pot and then watered it. We got back and there it was, barely living, still a silent reproach.

I sighed and carried it inside. Clearly, it was not going to be so easy for me to get rid of it. I didn’t want it sitting with the rest of my indoor plants, though (all two of them) – so I decided “out of sight, out of mind.” I put it in one of the empty bedrooms and closed the door, forgetting about it for weeks on end and then overwatering as usual. The plant sat in virtual darkness the whole time, only getting light from the window on these short winter days.

But what I didn’t know was that this was just what the plant needed to thrive – lots of darkness in a cool room with a little neglect thrown in. And then it happened.

Wouldn’t you welcome all your afflictions and trials if you knew this was going to be the result? Good news for you: it is.

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:2-4

I’ll probably put this in a dark room and neglect it in the morning.