Last year I bought a hibiscus while in coastal Florida and brought it home. I loved the color of the big full blooms and enjoyed them all spring and summer. In the fall, as frost threatened, I put it in the backyard studio intending to water it over the winter, so it’d come back in the spring.
But…I forgot to
water, and when I finally checked on it, the barren branches screamed neglect.
Dead.
A couple of weeks
ago, I was at a family member’s house and saw a hibiscus on their patio putting
out leaves.
“In the garage
all winter,” I was told. “Maybe watered it twice.”
Oh, if I’d only
remembered and mourned the loss of the plant, knowing it’d be unlikely to find
one like it locally.
I went home and
took the lost cause plant out of the studio intending to throw it on the leaf
pile near the road and reuse the pot. As I did, I remembered what my gardening
neighbor used to say. “Don’t give up on a plant,” he’d advised. “Hang on to it,
give it water, and sometimes they come back.”
I suppose he’d
learn over a lifetime that often when things seem dead, that given time and
nurture, they could still revive.
Well, I did what my
neighbor said. I soaked the plant and put the scraggly thing out in the sun.
I’ve checked on
it several times over the past two weeks. Nothing but brown branches, but at
least Lucy hadn’t made a chew toy out of it. This morning, again, at first I
saw no sign of life.
Sigh.
Then, as I bent
closer, down near the roots, a few tiny little leaves sprouted.
I wanted to have
a parade. I hadn’t killed the hibiscus after all.
I was so happy I
even made Jerry go out and look at it.
For my sake, he
feigned rejoicing. I think I’ve mentioned before that he’s not big on
gardening.
But as I’ve
reflected on my hibiscus, I thought of words by Andrew Murray that I underlined
in the Christian classic, With Christ in the School of Prayer. “Instead of being hopeless or
judging or giving up those who fall, let us pray for our circle, ‘Father! Keep
them in Thy Name; Sanctify them through Thy truth.’ Prayer in the Name of
Jesus availeth much; ‘What ye will shall be done unto you.’”
As the water and
sun were to my plant, hope, prayer, and God’s word are to those who appear to
be dead to the life in Christ.
Given nurture and time, God who is always at work, may allow us to see a demonstration of that work.
At one point in
my life, I was for sure a lost cause. In fact, because of the way I was living,
someone close to me once said, “I can’t help you anymore.”
But somehow, a
few did persevere in prayer. And God redeemed my life.
All these years
later, I’m sad to say there are times, when I look at someone’s life and wonder
if there’s hope.
I don’t want to
ever forget what God has done for me. You may remember the Casting Crowns song "Jesus, Friend of Sinners." i would like to be as Jesus is, even in the direst circumstances.
God’s all about
raising the dead. Let’s pray for his heart and his eyes to see the people
around us. God, help us be a friend to sinners.
I’m going out to stare at my hibiscus. There’s just something amazing about seeing dead things come back to life.