"Give up...". Those are two words that I have felt more than I can count over the past several months. However, looking at this orchid in the picture above, so full of life and vibrant with colors, is helping fill me with hope instead of giving up hope.
I almost gave up on this orchid in the picture. I’d never been able to keep one alive before, so what would make me think this time would be any different? I was given this orchid as a gift for my birthday last September and immediately said to myself, “I’ll never keep this thing alive. I never have before. What would make this time different?” I began to think differently when the florist at Kroger told me how easy orchids are to take care of, so I thought I’d give it another try. She said it was easy. I had a little glimmer of hope. It bloomed in my office for a while and then like all the other ones I’d had over the years, the blooms fell off and it began to wilt.
Honestly, I forgot about it after a while. It looked pretty pathetic as you can see in the picture above. I’d water it each week out of obligation but without much hope. Then March rolled around and Covid-19 changed all of our lives. Like many of us, I was given a few hours to come up to my school office and take home the things I thought I would need since we were all ordered to work from home. Symbolic to some of my feelings about the world at that moment, I looked at my orchid all brown and hopeless. I thought, “See, this is what always happens. I can never keep these alive.” But something inside kept me from giving up on it. I decided to take it home and change its environment. Maybe it needed sunlight and a little more attention than I’d given it before. I put it in my front bedroom right near the window to get some sun and decided to wait and see what happened.
Days turned in to weeks which have now turned into months of Covid and my orchid has still sat in the very same spot in that window of my front bedroom. I’ve continued to water it and wait. Waiting always seems to be the hardest part especially when my eyes can’t see any signs of change. Many days I’d go into that front room and repeat to myself, “See told you. You can’t keep this alive.” But then, a few weeks ago, something started to change. I saw a new leaf start to come up from the dirt. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. With no signs of change for months, now suddenly there was hope. New growth! New life was emerging from the ground. Change was happening all along to that little plant, but I couldn’t see it yet. Then I saw a new bud and joy starting bubbling in my heart. Could it be? Could my little orchid really still be alive?
As you can see by the beautiful blooms in the first picture above, my orchid is more than alive, it’s more beautiful than the day last September when it was given to me as a gift. Doubt, discouragement, disappointment, and hopelessness can all creep in when we don’t see the change we want. Giving up can be so easy, but what if we give ourselves, our marriage, and our situations a little more time to grow? What if the greatest moment is still to come but we miss it because we gave up too soon?
Instead of the two words “Give up...” that I’ve been tempted to say, I am now trying harder than ever to change my words to “Just grow...”. These are the words I am telling myself these days when I want to give up too soon. Growth happens many times on the inside before we can ever see it on the outside. The Bible tells us in Galatians 6:9: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
My little orchid is now reaping a harvest of beautiful purple blossoms at just the right time. Though I couldn’t see it with my eyes at the time, I now see in full that it was growing all along. Let’s not grow weary. Let’s not lose hope. What a forfeit of blessings I would have had had I given up on my little plant! And for all or us, what blessings could be right around the corner. Let's not give up. Let’s just grow!!
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